WikiLeaks posted new information about how the USA has been spying on top Japanese officials for over a
decade. The NSA had better hope this doesn't affect the export of Hello Kitty, or there'll be hell to pay!

There is a new anti-abortion tactic where the state is trying to remove a woman's parental rights over her child so she can't make the decision to abort. Of course, since the woman wants an
abortion, the still hasn't given birth, which means she doesn't yet have a child, which means she isn't a parent, which means there are no parental rights to take away, but these are Alabama
Christians so honesty and intelligence are nowhere to be found.
Remember, this is a state where the Governor appoints a fundamentalist Christian who was home-schooled his entire life and has no professional education experience to the
State Board of
Education.

Angel Dillard is a Christian terrorist who shows Jesus's love by telling a doctor, "You will be checking under your car everyday — because maybe today is the day someone places an explosive under
it," because Jesus was all about murder threats. Dillard is arguing that she didn't mean that as a threat, and believes she should be protected by free speech, but a judge disagrees and has given the
green light to a trial by jury.

Give the middle finger to a cop for calling you a, "faggot," and expect to be beaten and imprisoned! But that's not
nearly as bad as when you show up for a party thinking a cop's house is your friend's. A, yet unidentified, off-duty police officer woke up at 2:00 AM to some teens ringing his doorbell and banging on
his door (front and back). He proceeded to yell and curse at them. Realizing their mistake, the teens returned to their car and drove away, but then they noticed the cop had pulled out his
laser-sighted pistol! As the teens tried to drive off, the cop shot at them three times in the middle of a subdivision! Not content with almost murdering someone for a mistaken address, the cop then
called in squad cars to stop the teen's vehicle. During the chase, one of the teens fled on foot. The other two were arrested by the police. Again, not content, the police sent out canine units and a
helicopter to find the final teen, which they did. The excuse the police used for this insane use of force was that the original cop though the teens were trying to rob him. It probably never occurred
to him that burglars don't usually ring the doorbell and wait for someone to come to the door. All three teens are being held, even though no criminal charges have been brought up, and likely never
will as there's nothing illegal about trying to run away for a lunatic with a gun.

The schools of Fremont, Colorado had a long history of trying to force their version of Christianity on their students, and this didn't sit well for one of the Jewish teachers. After complaining
about their indoctrination, the teacher was demoted. This led to a lawsuit, and the district ended up losing big in a settlement where they agreed to all of the lawsuit's demands rather than face
certain defeat in court. When you read about how flagrant their indoctrination was, it's pretty obvious why
they capitulated.

Rowan County, North Carolina has decided to learn the expensive way that they can't keep their exclusive
prayers to Jesus; just ask
Orange County, California which had their first
atheist invocation.

You may think that the speed of light is hella-fast, but when you compare it to the size of the solar system, suddenly it's incredibly slow. This video shows light leaving the sun and heading out
into the universe in scale time. It takes 43 minutes just to reach Jupiter!

A federal appeals court has ruled that pharmacist are not allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions if they themselves wouldn't take the medicine (e.g., birth control). The rights of a patient trump
the rights of bigoted pharmacists!

Detroit may not have much going for it, but at least they unveiled a Satanist monument and required you to pledge your soul to Satan in order
to view it.

Islam is not a race, it is a religion, and it is deserving of criticism, regardless of despicable deeds of Muslim terrorists.

Kentucky State Police officer, Scott Steward, who is very proud to be a white heterosexual Christian thinks burning a Muslim's house to the ground is funny. This is a bit scary, considering he also
an arson investigator.

Here is a map of all 75 mass-shootings in the USA only since Sandy Hook in 2012. This is a problem that is not going
to be solved by more guns because the shooters aren't interested in living, they're interested in killing. Even if
everyone else had a gun, there would still be several casualties.

Donald Trump is a disgusting pig of a man. Not only is he ridiculed by Liberals, he's even mocked by the other members of his own party. But, while Liberals trash him for calling Mexican rapists
and saying that captured and tortured US soldiers aren't heroic, Conservatives trash him for not being close enough
to their god.

Rachel Maddow has to explain to Rick Santorum the very basics of the USA's Constitutional law and why, yes, Congress can attempt to make any law they want, but the Supreme Court decides if it is
constitutional, and if it isn't, it's struck down. If you want to go against that ruling, you can't just pass a law saying "nuh-uh!" you need to
amend the Constitution.

The arrest video of Sandra Bland has been released, and it's pretty awful. Officer Brian Encinia stopped Bland for failing to signal while changing lanes. While talking to her, he asked that she
put out her cigarette. Bland, rightfully so, explained that she was in her car and didn't have to. At this, Officer Encinia decided that she needed to leave her car. Police -are- legally allowed to
order you out of your car without reason (which is bullshit), and Bland said no; again, there is no reason for a cop to order a person out of their car for a failure to signal at a lane change, or
refusing to put out their cigarette in their own car. After Bland refused to leave her car, Officer Encinia opened her door an tried to pull her out saying, "I’m going to yank you out of here," and,
"I’m going to drag you out of here." Bland shouted, "Don’t touch me, I’m not under arrest," and then Officer Encinia's power trip reached its peak. He pulled out a Taser, pointed it at Bland, and
said, "I will light you up!" Not wanting to be electrocuted, Bland got out of her car. Then, Officer Encinia walked Bland out of view of his dash cam and where Bland can be heard saying,
"[Officer Encinia] just slammed my head to the ground." Officer Encinia claimed that he had to throw Bland to the ground after she became combative. Bland was then arrested, cuffed, and hauled off to
jail for refusing to let her civil liberalities be violated. Interestingly, Officer Encinia made no mention of trying to drag Bland out of her car or threatening her with his Taser. According to
police, Bland was found dead in her cell, apparently from hanging herself with her cell's trash bag. Being hauled off to jail for a minor traffic violation is awful by itself, but a death while in
police custody from a traffic violation is incomprehensible. There is an internal investigation
being conducted, but then, there's always an
internal investigation, and justice is rarely served.

Speaking of cops abusing their power, Stone's County Sheriff's Office in Missouri wants criminals to know that God himself has sent police officers, and that only criminals (or Muslims, Jews,
Hindus, atheists, etc.) need fear the police, it says so right in the doctored bible verse they have on their
web site!

What if authors wrote the about female musicians the way the write about male
musicians?

Aron Ra talks about how religions never seem to get the big picture of cosmology.

A school in Georgia finally learned to stop forcing Christianity on its students, but it was a lesson that cost the taxpayers
$22,500.

After years of Christian prayers opening the DeLand, Florida City Council meetings, they finally allowed a secular invocation to be given by Jake Lee Smith. They rewarded hid efforts by giving him
a lapel pin with a Christian
cross on it.

A lot of people see lawsuits as frivolous when secularists demand the government remain neutral by not displaying religious iconography. But let's not forget that when you let religion go
unchecked, you get places like the Middle East, where even the more progressive United Arab Emirates have
banned all criticism of religion. And while you may think something like that would never happen in
the US, keep in mind that there are plenty of Americans who want to prevent Muslims from being allowed to have a place to
bury their dead.

Had a great weekend hanging out at two gatherings of friends and foolishly starting a new character in Terraria.

Beth Landau-Halpern taught a class on how the scientific approach to medicine is wrong, and why students should believe in magical healing instead. However, after a successful protest by the
student body of the University of Toronto, her quack class has been canceled, and she's lost her staff position. How a woefully inadequate teacher like Landau-Halpern ever made it to Toronto
University can easily explained as nepotism. As it turns out, her husband is the Dean of the campus to which she was hired. It's a shame that the corruption in the University of Toronto had to be
eliminated by the students rather than the faculty.

The Magnus Effect has a very interesting result with a basketball dropped from a dam.

When a young man with Down syndrome didn't comply with Deputy Jeffrey Guy's orders, he gave the mentally impaired man a severe beating that included smashing his face onto the pavement, whacking
him with a metal bar, and spraying him in the face with pepper spray. The San Diego, CA police department decided to settle their dispute with the family by giving them $1,000,000 of the
taxpayer's money, but they refuse to fire Deputy Jeffrey Guy, even though he admits
that he would do the same thing again.

Arizona Police officer Jeremy Sweet, driving an unmarked van, didn't like being honked at for his reckless driving. After being honked at, he slowed down to make the other driver pass him, then
tried to ram his car with his van. After that, he drove up alongside the other car and drew a gun on the two passengers. With his finger on the trigger, he told them to be careful who they honk at
next time. He should have been careful who he points a gun at, because it turned out to be a former State Senator who had worked for the state for 10 years. Officer Sweet has thankfully been arrested
for aggravated assault, but I wonder how many times in the past he has pulled his gun
on innocent people who didn't have political clout.

A former Ford employee, Thomas Banks, was fired after posting hate-speech against homosexuals on Ford's internal web site and is now suing the company because, in his eyes, the government must
protect his hate-speech because it is religious in nature. After telling all his co-workers that homosexual behavior leads to death, doesn't benefit anyone, and Ford should be ashamed for thinking
otherwise, his lawsuit asks that the court give him the same respect he shows to
all people. Be careful
what you wish for!

Being a Jehovah's Witness means abstaining from pretty much everything fun and exciting in life. You can't drink alcohol or even caffeine, you can't wear sexy lingerie, you can't be involved in
politics or vote, you can't even play competitive sports. Unless, of course, you're a famous Jehovah's Witness who can bring in more converts, then the rules
no longer apply.

Churches are essentially money pits. People throw gobs of money into them, and while they sometimes accidentally do good works, they mostly just use their tithes to proselytize (i.e., advertise).
However, as an unspoken rule, churches never require its members to pay tithes. Well, all that has changed with the Greater Mount Moriah Primitive Baptist Church in Tampa, Florida. These Christians
aren't of the money-is-the-root-of-all-evil variety, and are actually demanding that their congregates pay a
monthly bill!

If the Christians who make anti-choice ads are to be believed, every woman who has ever had an abortion regrets their decision for the rest of their lives, but the evidence shows that, years after
their abortions, 95% of women still believe it was the right
choice to make.

Recently, Mississippi schools had to shell out $15,000 for trying to push Christianity on their students, but they continued to preach to their kids, so they lost another lawsuit and had to dish
out another $7,500 to a student and pay all the legal costs of the American Humanists Association. The courts are anticipating a third violation, so they setup an automatic system, where the next time
the school tries to convert a student, they won't even bother with the lawsuit, they'll just be forced to pay $10,000 for each instance. The real losers here are are the students themselves, as all of
the money lost in these trials comes from the local taxpayers which should have went to
funding the school.

Steve Prohm, the new head coach of the men's Iowa State basketball team plans on introducing a new tactic into this year's training to help bring victory to the college. No, it isn't practicing
fundamentals or motivating the players, it's prayer! Because if you can appease Prohm's god, you can dunk from
half-court!

The US Army continues to tell enlisted soldiers which of their deeply-held religious beliefs are real, and which
are fake.

The wall of crosses at the Gregg County Clerk's office in Texas came down and the clerk is without the need for
a lawsuit.

How far do you need to go into a prostitution sting operation before you can arrest the criminal? According to the police in Fort Smith, Arkansas, you actually have to have sex with the prostitute
before you can be sure that they're a prostitute. They also fired the whistle-blower officer, because having the taxpayers foot the bill for cops who want to bang prostitutes isn't nearly as bad as an
when an officer outs their criminal behavior.

No doubt you've heard a sob story where a poor innocent Christian teacher was reprimanded for doing something completely harmless like trying to convert an entire classroom of children to their
religion? These are usually embellished with the most ridiculous lies to justify them, but what happens when the tables are turned, and a public school's Christian faculty turns a non-believer's
classroom into a Sunday School lesson?

C. Allen McConnell came to his calling as a Judge after witnessing the anti-racist Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Apparently, he didn't learn much from this because he's refusing to accept the
Civil Rights Movement of
homosexuals.

Home, home on the range...

Feeling: Happy

2015-07-10

This weekend, Emily and I are heading to Gunn Lake to enjoy the company of fellow skeptics, atheists, and free thinkers at the Secular Summer Retreat.

The world's best Christian explains the difference between religious expression and religious oppression.

Athletes In Action is a Christian organization whose goal is to use sports to convince school children to change their religion. This in itself is fully legal, though quite despicable. What is
illegal is when Mike DeWine, the Attorney General of Ohio, decides to give giving Athletes In Action $300,000 of taxpayer money to preach to children. Thankfully, this underhanded deal didn't go
unnoticed to the FFRF.

After serving years in prison for tax fraud, Kent Hovind is finally out on parole. His first act as a semi-free man was to post a picture of himself with a known child-molester protector,
Jim-Bob Duggar. Not exactly an
auspicious start!

It may be unethical, but that doesn't stop the NYPD from issuing unnecessary tickets to reach their quotas, and then later
destroying the evidence. At least they're not as bad as this Maryland cop who raped a woman
at gunpoint.

Saudi Arabia isn't what you'd call a progressive country, they still ban women from driving, and their media contains some of the most ignorant hate speech imaginable
against atheists.

You've probably seen those headlines which read something like, "14-year-old discovers this amazing trick that scientists never thought of before!" Do you know why scientists never thought of these
ideas? Because they're bad ideas that only a dilettante would consider, but that doesn't mean the ideas won't receive a lot of funding.

Why is it that Ysrael Bien, a priest at St. Francis Catholic Church, never did anything after he had been shown a hidden camera placed in the churches men's room toilet? The answer can probably be
figured out when we learn that the priest was given a leave of absence during a
police investigation.

Epic rap battles of history pits against each other philosophers from the East and West.

There is something wrong when police are stopping you just so they can give you religious pamphlets and
make you pray.

Recently, the state of Oklahoma lost their case of arguing that the Ten Commandments monument on government grounds didn't violate the state's separation of church and state, but this didn't sit
well with Oklahoma Republicans. They decided that, if their constitution doesn't allow them to place religious monuments on government property, why remove the monument when you can just
change the constitution? They may even pull
it off, though they'll still have to deal with the ultimate federal government case. Really all this is doing is just costing the state millions and wasting valuable time that could be spent actually
making Oklahoma a better place.

Take a deep breath and count back from ten, and maybe you'll be alright

Feeling: Happy

2015-07-07

Emily got a blender that can make snow cones. Diabetes, here I come!

Brevard County, Florida Commissioners make it clear, non-religious people are not welcome to give an invocation because invocations are about using government institutions to honor their god, and
anyone who thinks differently is not only hostile against those poor minority Christians, but unfamiliar with the Constitution! I look forward to their upcoming payout
to the FFRF.

Yet another example that giving teens education and access to birth control not only decreases the spread of STIs, but it also decreases the number of unwanted pregnancies. Meanwhile, eliminating
sexual education and replacing it with abstinence, only causes an increase if STIs and
unwanted pregnancies.

The Sydney Morning Herald, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, and News.com.au are all very upset about the sob story presented by Belle Gibson, the woman who claimed she cured her cancer with a whole host
of New Age mumbo jumbo, made a ton of money convincing other people to try the same, and was then outed for never actually having had cancer. But it was, in fact, all three of these outlets who were
promoting her obvious bullshit until the real journalists at 60 Minutes broke the story
of her
lies.

Esben Lunde Larsen, a Danish man, is fairly racist and refers to black people using the derogatory term, "negre." He's also a Christian Creationist who believes, not in the big bang or evolution,
but that the universe was created by his god. He's not even interested in how the universe came into being, he just chalks it up as one of his god's great mysteries. All of this spells doom for
Denmark, as he was just appointed head of the nation's scientific research
department! *shudder*

What kind of country is it where you call one entire race of people rapists, and suddenly nobody wants you to endorse their products
anymore.

Republican Mike Huckabee explains what's wrong with same-sex marriage, it's about pleasing people and love, not about the thing that really matters,
signing contracts!

After talking about Nazis, Christian preacher Mat Staver assures us that the recent ruling allowing same-sex marriage is just the beginning; soon, the US Department of Education will be demanding
that 5ive-year-olds start experimenting with homosexual
sex.

Americans celebrated the 4th of July, even though many of them had no idea why.

The Oslo Catholic diocese in Norway has been accused of fraud for purposely inflating their number of members in hopes of receiving more money from the government. This backfired, and after finding
out about it, the Norwegian government is demanding back
$5.1 million!

Now that they have legal backing, churches are starting to finally accept same-sex marriage and allow it among their ranks. While there were a few courageous churches like the Unitarian
Universalists who were doing it before the Supreme Court ruling, the churches who are doing it now are
too little too late.

Why is it we have so many people rooting for the South? Probably because they don't know the truth about the South because modern Southerns
lie to their children. To
give you an idea of just how out of touch with American history these people are, here are some of the questions you can expect to get about slavery while giving tours of a historic
Southern plantation.

Casselberry, Florida offers a summer camp for children, and, until now, that summer camp involved trying to convert the children to a specific brand of Christianity. The FFRF convinced the city to
stop sending the kids to church. Now, if only all
instances of the state-church integration could go this smoothly without wasting taxpayer's money!

What happens when airport police take a college student's life savings for the crime of carrying too much money? 13 different police departments end up fighting over who gets to keep Charles
Clarke's money, who will probably have to drop out of college now. This is nothing new for Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport who continue to seize more money from their passengers every year, even
though the total number of passengers continues to decline; over $10,000,000 in the past 10 years! And, unlike in public where you can at least attempt to deny the police from ransacking your
belongings, at the airport, they are required to ransack your belongings, and if you have a lot of cash, they're practically
required to take it.

The Oklahoma State Supreme Court has ruled that, even though it was donated by a private group, the Ten Commandments monument on the state Capitol violates the
state's
constitution. Naturally, the Republicans in the state are calling for the impeachment of all of the judges who ruled in favor of the ACLU, which is 7 out of the 9, which would leave the court
awfully sparse!

Yvette d'Entremont explains the many problems with trusting the nutritional advice of cranks like the Food Babe.

Conservatives are still crying about the ban on same-sex marriage being lifted. Republican, Jason Rapert reminds minorities that they only have rights because he chooses to
give them rights. The lawyer of Alabama Supreme
Court Chief Justice Roy Moore writes that public officials are actually ministers of his god who must
punish the wicked.

Thankfully, there are still people who are capable of seeing the dangers of mixing religion and government. The Colorado Supreme Court struck down the state's voucher program that would use
taxpayer's money to fund Christian schools, and the ACLU and FFRF
continue to fight the Religious Restoration Act, the law that allows corporations to ignore Federal laws because the company claims to have
religious views.

Republicans continue to be the villains of history

Feeling: Happy

2015-06-30

Someone wrote a wikiHow guide for confusing atheists, so I wrote a nice commentary on their drivel.

So far, the United States Air Force has spent an estimated $400,000,000,000 of the taxpayer's money developing the F-35
Lightning II fighter jet, over twice what they originally planned. Once in production, each jet will cost at least $80,000,000 to build and the fleet will cost an estimated $13,000,000,000 every
year to operate and maintain. Of course, the project has hit so many roadblocks,
it won't even be ready for production until at least 2018, and not be really functional until 2022. To make matters worse, the test pilots who have flow the jet complain that, even after over a decade
of development, it's still not as maneuverable as existing fighter jets! The real
icing on the cake comes from that fact that, even if Lockheed Martin somehow gets their act together and manages to solve all of these horrible problems and produces a competent jet, it will just sit
in a hangar and rust! We are not at war with any industrialized nation where this amount of firepower would be necessary, and there is no reason to think we will be during the life of the F-35!

Conservative Americans fought tooth and nail to keep segregation in the USA, but in 1954 it was outlawed. But the
Conservatives, even the self-righteous Christians, continued
to fight it for another 20+ years until now, thanks to the work of decent people, segregation is isolated to only a few small barbaric Conservative areas where they people can't even openly admit to
segregating. Well, here we are in 2015. Conservatives have been fighting to keep homosexuality on the fringe, but loving people, and now the law, are bringing it into the light, and while we see
plenty of parallels from
the Conservatives who refused to accept racial integration, we can expect homosexuality to find its place among the caring as well.

Texas Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, has appointed a new head for the Board of Education. Donna Bahorich is now in charge of handling all the affairs of the state's public school system, which
is odd considering she is an advocate of home-schooling, and none of her children ever attended a public
school. She's also a young-earth Creationist.

What happens when Republicans take away sexual education from schools? You start getting adults who don't know where babies come from! Tony Perkins, president of the Christian hate group, the
Family Research Council, suggests that by allowing same-sex marriage, we will see an increase in the number of
unwed mothers.

But the dear green place is gone

Feeling: Happy

2015-06-29

Even the the Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot take away the civil rights of same-sex couples, this doesn't mean they can expect to married by everyone. Same-sex couples will still have to
find someone willing to officiate their wedding who accepts with their sexuality. Just like how Protestants shouldn't expect a to be married by a Catholic priest, same-sex couples will have a hard
time finding a Evangelical or Mainline Christian willing to perform their marriage. This type of discrimination is protected by the first amendment of the US Constitution, and, even if it weren't,
there are few Americans who want to change that. So, why then are Tennessee Republicans trying to make a law that would protect Christian preachers who refuse to marry same-sex couples, something that
nobody wants them to do? Of course, this is different if you're an employee
of our secular government. Part of the job of, say, the Justice of the Peace, is to solemnize marriages without question, regardless of their personal views, just like a Christian police officer isn't
allowed to only arrest non-Christians or a Christian patent clerk isn't allowed to only grant patents to Christian inventors. However, the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who is both Christians
and Republican, has just decided that Christian government workers may choose to not solemnize their marriages of anyone they disagree with (i.e.,
same-sex couples). We can always trust
Conservatives to know what "traditional" marriage is all about, just watch Donald Trump talk about his
third wife. Or what about the Christian hate group, AFTAH? They're
doubling-down on their stance against same-sex marriage and continuing to make Christians everywhere look bad with their latest published
Core Principles and Beliefs.

Speaking of unacceptable encroachments of Christianity into secular government, the Army is trying to force their brand of Christianity on their
graduating soldiers.

After a year of having the state of Florida make up reasons to prevent an atheist monument from being erected next to a monument of the Ten Commandments on state land, the Williston Atheists have
had enough and are suing the state to force them to be
fair.

Ladies and gentlemen, despite the best attempts of Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito to try and stop it, same-sex marriage is finally legal in every state
in the USA! As you can expect, there are some pissed off Conservatives out there, like the person who wrote
this letter. Christians are seeing the dismantling of their cultural control
as a blessing in disguise thinking, now that same-sex marriage is legal, maybe people will want to
become Christian again.

Had lunch and the table next to me had two kids. One was watching TV on a phone at full volume, the other was crying because the battery in his grandmother's phone had died and he couldn't play
games. Even when their food came, the older boy continued to watch TV despite of his parents telling him to stop. The parents seemed totally unfazed by this lack of obedience and the overall
disrespect of all the neighboring patrons. I kind of feel bad for the kids. Even though they're entirely obnoxious, it's really their useless parent's fault.

Clementine Ford recently posted a racy (though non-nude) photo of herself protesting the Australian television show Sunrise for blaming women who had their private nude photos had been used as
revenge by jilted ex-lovers. Ford was then met with hundreds of highly offensive and violent message from horrible men, to which she reported as abuse on Facebook. Facebook's staff looked at these
posts and rejected many of them, even the ones where men were violently demanding that she kill herself. Rather than let it slide, Ford reposted the men's comments with Facebook's response that they
weren't abuse. And while Facebook doesn't care if men send her death threats, they do care when Ford informs her readers that Facebook doesn't care, and they gave her account a
30-day suspension. Thankfully, there was a huge backlash, and Facebook
reinstated her account, but they should be quite ashamed of themselves.

Even though she's been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to preach abstinence to children, Bristol Palin has just explained that she is pregnant with her second out-of-wedlock child from a man
different from her first child. I don't have any problem with her having sex outside of marriage, or having children from multiple men. What I have a problem with, is all the time she was telling
children not to have sex unless you're married, she was being a hypocrite.

The USA went from 12th place to 23rd place in the latest Gallup-Healthways Country Well-Being Report which measures the overall well-being of a
nation's citizens.

Enjoy this Libertarian pamphlet about university professors indoctrinating students with
inconvenient truths.

Jamie Oliver discusses America's obsession with torture including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's referencing the television series 24 as evidence
that it works.

It didn't take long, but when the Freedom From Religion Foundation was informed about a Christian flag being flown at a courthouse in Warren, Arkansas, they explained to them why it was illegal,
and the courthouse took it down shortly thereafter. Equal rights is often just as simple
as asking.

Guitarist Eddie Van Halen was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue and esophagus, and treatment required the removal of one-third of his tongue. Interestingly, Van Halen attributes his cancer to
using metal guitar picks and often placing them in his mouth (he thinks brass and copper cause cancer), and spending a lot of his time in a recording studio (he thinks being near electrical wires
causes cancer). He explained this to an interviewer while smoking a vaporizer and admitting to having been a cigarette smoker
for decades. Nobody ever said being a rock star made you smart.

Some rather shocking poll results have been published by the Public Religion Research Institute. When asked if protesting helps America be a better country, most Americans (63%) say yes. When asked
if a crowd of mostly white protesters is good, even more Americans (67%) say yes, but when asked if a crowd of mostly black protesters is good, suddenly most Americans (65%) say NO! Also, most
Americans (62%) believe that God made America special. Most Americans (52%) feel you must believe in God to be truly American. There is some good news though. The younger generations was much
less-likely to share the older crowd's racist, jingoistic, and bigoted views, and only a third of Americans (33%) believe it's very important to be Christian or born in America to be a
true American.

A very interesting talk about the pros and cons of the decline of global languages.

Churches are implementing some nice Big Brother tactics to figure out who is in attendance, including closed-circuit video monitoring and
facial recognition software.

Seriously folks, read a book!

Feeling: Happy

2015-06-24

Does Fox News create racists, or do racists gravitate toward Fox News? Either way, polling data shows that it is the preferred channel
for racists.

If you sync up these twovideos, you'll see how the Coriolis Force only affects
pools of water in extreme circumstances, not the water in your bathtub or toilet.

Sureshbhai Patel is left paralyzed after two cops smash his face to the ground for looking into someone's garage around a neighborhood while having dark skin and
not speaking English.

Top secret documents were recently leaked which show the US government spying on top French government officials, including the nation's presidents, since 2006. The American response was
effectively, "well, we're not doing it any more." That's so bad,
it's not even a non-apology! Great work America, burn those bridges; who needs allies?

There are some impressive costumes seen in these pictures from gay pride festivals from around the world.

Christianity is the number one majority religion for most nations. But what do you think is the number two majority religion of most nations? According to a new Pew Forum poll, it's
unaffiliated!

Even though the city attorney reminded the City Council members that they can't say prayers themselves, the officials of Flint, Michigan (my nearest metropolitan area) went right ahead and prayed
anyway. This may result in a lawsuit, but pending that, the Michigan Satanists are looking to recite their prayers at the
Flint City Council. Satanists have
a way of sticking in the cralw of Christians, like their lawsuit against the state of Missouri for placing unnecessary
restrictions on abortion.

Atheists are no longer the least electable people in the USA! That prize his now held by Socialists (i.e., people who subscribe to the
political and economic model of sharing and helping the less fortunate). Catholics are still number
one in spite of their rampant pedophilia and desecration of women's rights, because you can't be a good moral leader without those. Good job America, you made me remember why I do what I do!

India is facing a deadly heatwave, and Christians have figured out a way to help them. No, not with huge amounts of clean water, shaded shelters, fans, air conditioning units, no, no, how would any
of that help? No, Christians are sending them something that will actually help them! They're sending them radios so that they can listen to
Christian broadcasts! Because, it may be hot in India, but not nearly as hot as the fires of
HELL!

I'm always a little terrified at the sheer ignorance of people who declare that the USA is a Christian Nation, and to hell with everyone else, but I'm a lot terrified when those people are
government officials.

With the US Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage reaching it's final ruling (which will most likely favor same-sex couples) several Republican politicians are trying to preemptively stop it.
Todd Courser, from Lapeer, Michigan (which is literally 20 minutes from my house), is trying to pass a law that will require marriage licenses to be a solemnized by ministers, even if both people
are atheists. Courser's hope is that, since even the Federal ruling making same-sex marriage legal won't force ministers to marry against their barbaric beliefs, they'll just turn down every same-sex
couple so they'll never be allowed to
marry. Courser, of course, is only prolonging the inevitable and continuing to hold back the Republican Party, to which he has my gratitude.

Jurassic World could have been a good movie if they replaced all the dinosaurs with wiener dogs.

Tennessee police officer, Michael Wilson, didn't like the noise a group of children were making while playing volleyball at the church next to his house, so he took out a BB gun and started
shooting the children. Police were called, but he was not arrested.

Despite their recent drop in numbers, probably due to their hatred of women and homosexuals, Christians continually cry that they're being discriminated against. Want an example? Christian pastor,
Rick Scarborough, is convinced that, if same-sex marriage becomes legal, there will be
mass-executions of Christians. He can have is imagined discrimination, but what does actual
discrimination look like? Ask Amos Yee, a 16-year-old Singaporean teen who was thrown in prison and will be subjected to a possible three years of "Reformative Training" while in prison. His crime?
According to the Singapore government, one of his YouTube videos
wounded Christianity.

The thing about religions is, even if their barbaric views toward women, homosexuals, and children don't kill them, they'll end up killing themselves by protecting child-rapists. While it's
traditionally Catholic priests with their vow of celibacy that causes them to turn to the helpless, it seems the rigid monogamy isn't doing any favors for Jehovah's Witnesses either. They just had to
pay out another six-figure settlement for knowingly putting a girl in the presence of child-rapist, Peter Stewart.

Garfunkel and Oates put out another hilarious song about becoming a mom.

The US Treasury is finally breaking up the boy's club and preparing to change the face on the 10-dollar bill
to a woman.

Fundamentalist Christian Greg Gianforte is looking to run for governor of Montana. He's very much against the concept of retirement because it's not mentioned in the bible. As he says, "How old was
Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn't like, cashing Social Security checks, he wasn't hanging out, he was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change
over time, but the concept of retirement is not biblical." But it's not just telling people in their 80s to suck it up and get back to the mill, Gianforte also wants your children to believe, as he
does, that The Flintstones was a documentary, not
fiction.

An artificial intelligence created through neural net evolution that learns to play Super Mario World.

Dylann Roof, the white supremest drug addict from South Carolina who
murdered nine black church-goers, has been caught and is in
jail pending his trial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what to expect from a pill-popping racist with a gun, but Conservative pundits can't quite seem to figure it out. Here is a growing list
of what they think is to blame.

When talking about climate change, usually you bring up pollution, scarcity of fuel, that sort of thing. Of course, if you're the Pope talking about climate change, you remind people not to use
birth control or have
abortions.

Republican Jody Hice believes that separation between church and state is a false belief (never mind that pesky First Amendment), and that secular beliefs lead to divorce, crime, and teen
pregnancy. Of course, the truth is exactly
the opposite. Secular nations, on average, have less divorce, lower crime, and far fewer pregnant teens.

Machine within a machine, within a machine

Feeling: Okay

2015-06-18

More police corruption in the news. Santa Ana police raided a medical marijuana dispensary with guns drawn because the dispensary didn't have a permit. Seems a bit excessive for a place of
business, but it gets much worse. The police then systematically destroyed all the surveillance cameras, but ineptly missed a few. The remaining cameras show the police spending the day playing darts,
making fun of the shops disabled worker, and eating what appear to be pot brownies.
That's good work boys!

Walter Masocha, a Christian preacher who calls himself "The Prophet" sexually assaulted a little girl and an adult woman. But rather than throw him in jail, Sheriff of Stirling, Scotland, Kenneth
McGowan decided to punish him by giving him community service because the Sheriff thinks he's
suffered enough.

It's nice to see that Neil Pert of Rush finally outgrew his selfish ideals.

Those poor Christians who hold about 95% of the positions of power in the USA are being discriminated against!

But bitblting in a virtual machine is good times!

Feeling: Blah

2015-06-17

Add Mexico to the list of countries that have effectively legalized same-sex marriage
before the USA!

The same Republicans who side with corporations over actual people because that's where they get tons of bribes are often found violating the laws of corporations especially during election season.
Case in point, Donald Trump used Neil Young's "Rockin' In the Free World" as his campaign theme song
without Young's permission.

Fox News anchor, on the topic of being transgender, "If I self-identify as a cat do I have to
pay taxes?" Aw man, what a great plan! Tell you what, go
through several painful surgeries to add a tail, retractable claws, and pointed ears on the top of your head. Then, start taking hormones that cause you to grow hair all over your body. And if you
figure out a way to develop superior night vision, then no... you will no longer have to pay taxes!

Over the weekend Emily and I saw Jurassic World (lame) and had a fun fire in the back with Wallee, Danielle, and Matt
(awesome). Nothing better than staying up until the wee hours of the morning while sick. At least alcohol numbs the throat.

UK police are violating the privacy of a few thousand people by digitally scanning the faces of every single person who attends Download Festival. The police have made no mention of how long
they'll keep the recorded data, but they have given a reason for why they're giving Orwell's Big Brother a run for his money. Have they had bomb threats? Terrorist activity? No... they're trying to
curb the theft of mobile phones.

The Large Hadron Collider may have discovered the Higgs Boson, but that doesn't mean there's nothing left to do.

Evangelical Christian and Fox "News" pundit Cal Thomas recently said that if we don't follow the bible on issues of marriage, we'll soon have polygamy and adults marrying children. Of course, both
of those practices were widely condoned in the bible, which makes you wonder if Thomas has ever actually
read the thing!

The United States has some serious problems with water. Texas had a devastating drought which gave way to severe flooding, and California is also seeing extreme drought. Scientists will probably
say that some extreme weather conditions are the result of the ebb and flow of chaotic systems exacerbated by global climate change, but who cares what scientists have to say when we can get our
information from an ignorant Fundamentalist like California State Assembly member Shannon Grove who says that drought is caused by God getting angry that states
allow abortion.

In an effort to prove Tim Hunt right, female scientists have been posting pictures of themselves in their sexy laboratory
attire.

New Horizons is getting closer to Pluto, and we're already getting some interesting images.

Some info about the women who helped put a stop to one of the most awful diseases children can get, whooping cough.

If people want to sell homemade food or drink to the public, are you okay with the idea of them needing to get an okay from a health inspector to ensure they're preparing their food or drink in a
sanitary manner? After all, nobody wants to pay for food-borne illness, and if the seller didn't go through the process of getting a health permit, you can probably be sure they also don't have
insurance to cover the doctor expenses for each of their customers. When adults try to sell food or drink to the public, this is expected. When kids do it, suddenly we're appalled at a nanny state
that has gone too far.

On one hand, I think it's great that the USA takes separation of church and state seriously enough that, in order to force their religion upon others, Christians need to
lie about their intentions. One the other hand,
I think it's just despicable to see Christians
lie about their intentions.

Despite being smart enough to win a Nobel Prize, Tim Hunt couldn't wrap his brain around the idea of working alongside women in a laboratory. As he said, they either cry when you criticize them, or
they become a distraction to the males. Thankfully, he decided to resign due to
the backlash.

Devout Christians Sarah and Nick Jensen want the rest of Australia to know, if the country votes for the legalization of same-sex marriage, they will get a divorce! To which the rest of Australia
says, who cares? Also, even though same-sex marriage is here to stay, and most civilized countries have
embraced it, Christianity Today is doubling-down and reminds its readers that they are still firmly
anti-homosexual.

Fox "News" made a fuss about Harvard Students accepting what their teachers taught them about the USA being a huge global threat, but they never bothered to
address their claims.

Conspiracy!

Feeling: Happy

2015-06-10

The so-called "Swedish Fish" that are distributed in North America are manufactured in CANADA!

Poor Rick Santorum. He was really hoping to give a detailed speech to his throngs of voters, but when he got to his campaign stop, only a single lone supporter was there
to greet him! I wonder if this had anything to do with
him, in an effort to chastise the Pope for accepting global warming, saying that we should leave science to the scientists?

Christians are always trying to paint doctors as villains for providing abortions, but here are a couple of profiles to show what they'rereally like.

People in power are usually very effective at quelling the masses, regardless of whether they deserve
their ire.

At least the USA isn't the only country where the government listens in on their conversations. The UK government refuses to deny that they use their own cellular towers to which nearby phones will
attach and allow them to capture sensitive data about every caller in the area. And yes, US police use these as well.

In an effort to keep his money in a bank that it just as bigoted as he, Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, closed his ministry's account at Wells Fargo, because the company aired an ad featuring
a lesbian couple. Graham moved his vast wealth to North Carolina-based BB&T, a good Southern bank where they hate fags in the name of Jesus. But it turns out, that BB&T is actually quite progressive
for a Southern company, and a proud supporter of the Miami
Beach Gay Pride Parade! You really stuck it to the man, Graham! Pun intended.

Another day ruined by the paranoid, uneducated, and dogmatic

Feeling: Happy

2015-06-09

The NSA's spying and surveillance of foreign and domestic users of American tech are expected to cost US companies about $35 billion in losses as people continue to go elsewhere for their tech
needs. It's almost as if people don't like having all their personal information illegally scrutinized by the
US government.

The board members of Rowan Country, North Carolina are not pleased with the precedence set forth by Greece v. Galloway or their
judge's decision to uphold the Constitution and tell them they can't pray to Jesus at their meetings, so they've decided to use taxpayer money to appeal. Well that's a much better use of money than
roads or schools! Well done gentleman! Please keep it up as long as possible and send your city
down the tubes!

Measles was mostly eradicated thanks to vaccinations, but the antivaxers think retro is cool, so they're bringing it back. In their eyes, it's "natural" for a child to get their immunities by
actually contracting a life-threatening disease rather than getting inoculated. Scientists have been studying the disease with modern tools that weren't available back when measles was rampant, and
they're finding that the disease is more dangerous than we previously thought. While a child contracts measles, their immune system becomes compromised. Now, an immune system in an otherwise healthy
child will bounce back and generate antigens capable of stopping the virus, but in this process, the majority of the body's other antigen producers are lost, and the body again becomes susceptible to
diseases to which they were once immune. So, even if you were immune to mumps, whooping cough, rubella, etc. prior to getting the measles, the infection can make you susceptible to them again.
However, when you're given a vaccination, your immune system begins producing antigens without first becoming compromised, which allows you to remain inoculated to all the
other diseases.

If you are formally kicked out of the Jehovah's Witness church, you must go through an apostasy trial to see if you're really the evil sinner they think you are. If your are found guilty of
apostasy, you will not only be kicked out of the church, but your family and friends inside of the church are expected to disown you entirely, or be accused of apostasy themselves. Normally, these
trials are held behind closed doors, but former Witness Isaac decided it was best that outsiders see just how ridiculous these trials are. By having a spycam on his person, he was able to record the
entire meeting: part 1, part 2,
part 3, part 4.

Just finished reading Ready Player One. It was a lot of fun, if you're a huge nerd from the 1980s.

Abortion rates are on the decline all around the country, must be all those Conservative Christians who are trying to outlaw sexual education and ban aboortion, right? Ha, no! It's thanks to more
comprehensive sex-ed and better access to
birth control. And if that doesn't
do it, I know one thing that will!

That a person can be held in the US prison system for three years without a trial is not only a violation of the
Sixth Amendment, but a travesty of humanity. Kalief Browder's death is on all of our hands for
allowing this to happen.

If you're trusting Donald "Hair Piece" Trump and Rob "Making Copies" Schneider to make medical decisions for your infant, maybe you shouldn't be allowed
to have children.

Just in case anyone forgot, the USA has a young-earth Creationists on its most
supreme court.

It seems, no matter how many psychics you go to, they'll all be able to help you communicate with your dead sister... even if you
never had one.

When people think "evil" they no longer think of devils with pointed tails and pitchforks, they think of the
Catholic church.

Pricilla Delmaro and her husband Bobby Evans will be enjoying jail for some time after getting caught trying to steal $700,000 from a man who wanted a psychic to help him get over the death of his
girlfriend. The difference between these "psychics" stealing close to a million dollars and people like James Van Praagh and John Edward, is that one of them isn't popular enough to
claim it's legit.

Saudi Arabia, the country that likes to execute men for singing in public or women for driving a car, wants to be the new head of the Human Rights Council for the
United Nations. Hell, why not North Korea?

When a woman discovered that her husband, Jordan Root, loved child pornography, she decided to get a divorce, but the church they belonged to, The Village Church, told her that if she tried to get
a divorce, they would have to discipline her!

Microsoft bundled adware into the latest round of Windows Updates under a false description. Kind of reminds me of Gator/Gain spyware from the early 2000s. You can remove it by following the
instructions on this site.

Taco Bell and Pizza Hut claim they're going "natural," but when natural doesn't have an agreed upon definition, what does that
really mean?

Why does Amsterdam have some of the lowest rates of unplanned teen pregnancy and STIs while still having a population of sexually active adults? Probably because they do such a great job with
comprehensive sexual education.

The web site Natural News is just entirely crazy. Conspiracy theorists will pretty much
believe anything, to which Rebecca Watson responds, no shit!

Pastor Robby Dawkins is claiming that he raised a man from the dead. However, when the man's family explains that the man didn't die, but only had a temporary seizure, the pastor blocked them from
his web site to prevent them from ruining his amazing tale
of resurrection.

Scottland to join England and Whales by banning Creationism in the science
classroom.

For those of you who want to know what the current level of scientific evidence in favor of life-after death, watch this debate. Each of
the four debaters are well-educated. However, those in favor of an afterlife are unable to bring up any evidence beyond anecdotes, and also believe in all manner of crazy things.

Have something that needs to be permanently frozen? Can't afford to lose power or have your freezer fail? Why not ship it to Antarctica where it will stay frozen all year round? Well, even that
isn't true anymore. Climate change has gotten so severe that scientists are literally shipping ice to Antarctica!

David Washington was seen driving the wrong way down a one-way street before finally stopping in an intersection. Assuming him to be high, Officer Shaun Jurgens ran up to his car and immediately
Tased Washington. Rather than writhe in agony from the pain of the electricity, Washington just sat there. Then, Officer Jurgens pulled out his pepper spray and covered the face of Washington. Again,
rather than scream, Washington just sat there. Finally, Officer Jurgens demanded Washington onto the street, threatening to murder him if he doesn't. Very slowly, Washington unbuckles his seatbelt, so
Officer Jurgens dragged him onto the street. He's left there, face covered in caustic pepper spray, while the police run his license. Eventually, Washington was taken to a hospital where doctors
determined that the reason he was so unresponsive was because he had a
stroke!

Overheard on the phone: "He's that new black kid. I think he's Cambodian, but he speaks good English." *facepalm*

One thing that is common in a group is to judge outsiders more harshly. For example, when a good-old Southern boy gets caught stealing, he may be given a stiff fine, but if a black man is caught
stealing he may be jailed or lynched. For those who want a just society, it's very important to recognize in-group bias, and correct it. I bring this up because of the recent in-group bias seen among
Christians trying to protect child-molester Josh
Duggar. Had this been a Muslim, Hindu, or atheist, would we see prominent Christians and politicians rushing to their defense? Hell, Josh's own father, Jim Bob Duggar, once held the view that
rape and incest (Josh is now guilty of both) should be punished with execution, but it turns out, not if the rapist
is Christian.

Texas Republicans weren't able to pass their intrusive law banning even private corporations from paying for abortion because Republican women pulled out at the
last moment.

Teen boy couldn't get a girl to like him, so he sent a SWAT team to her house.

The online game RUST randomly assigns race to players, and white guys are freaking out that they have to play
as a black guy.

Looks like Ireland is going to another one of the countries that beats us in allowing same-sex marriage.

Christians Ray Comfort and Eric Hovind aren't afraid to stand in solidarity with admitted child molester
Josh Duggar. And Judge Stacey Zimmerman, isn't afraid to have his criminal record
destroyed, possibly due to her ties with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who also supports the admitted
child molester.

The Duggars of 19 and Counting "fame" is a very strong Christian family. Of course, "very strong Christian" usually translates to "hates homosexuals, atheists, feminists, etc." In fact, the
patriarch of the family, Jim Bob, has campaigned against allowing a loving same-sex couple to have the right to get married. So, it came as a great shock to the Christian community, but not the
those of us who have been paying attention, that the family has been harboring a child molester for years. Turns out, eldest son Josh Duggar has been molesting the younger girls in his family ever
since he was a teen, and, rather than seek professional counseling or alert the police, the family prayed for him to get better and had him talk to an
unlicensed "mentor".

Remember Bou Bou, the infant who had his face and chest burned open after a SWAT team threw a flash bang grenade into his playpen at 3:00 AM because someone who used to live in the house sold
$50 worth of drugs? Well, the lawsuit is now over and the family has received restitution, unfortunately, it won't be enough to even cover the child's medical expenses, let alone the damages to their
home. And the money will be paid by taxpayers, not the individual police responsible. The final response essentially states: if you ever sell $50 of drugs in your house, you should expect your home to
be broken into at 3:00 AM by several gun-toting men, you should expected to have grenades detonated in your home, and you should expect to be responsible for the thousands of dollars of
medical expenses and damages.

What happens when you spend all of your time reading doomsday prophecy rather than learning about basic astronomy and red-shifted light? You start thinking a lunar eclipse is
proof of the apocalypse.

What would websites be like on a date? Bonus points for cute pixies who love Zelda.

Khaled Al-Gindi is a modern Egyptian. He wears a modern suit, with modern cuff-links, and a modern open collar. Yes, despite his modern appearance, his views are still quite Medieval. He claims to
speak for his entire country, he claims his religion is the original one, he claims his DNA requires him to believe in a god, and those who disagree with his view, should be forced to
leave his country.

People who grew up Christian know that the religion has an amazing knack for taking something cool and making it lame. You know what I'm talking about, instead of dressing up like a vampire for
trick-or-treating on Halloween your dressing up like a cartoon character at church, corporate logos get re-purposed with cringe-worthy bible messages, and let's not forget how a high school dance
becomes a ridiculous charade of respecting authority. Case in point, Praise Prom, for teens whose parents won't let them go to the real prom. While it's common for men of Scottish ancestry to wear a
kilt to formal events, the fashion police from Praise Prom refuse to let any male wear anything that isn't dress pants, so David Leix never got to attend his fake Christian prom. Those who run the
event may think that wearing a kilt turns men into transvestites, but they don't seem to have a problem with not respecting a woman's right to say no. According to their etiquette guide, women are
expected to dance with any man who
requests one!

What's the difference between police responding to a white man and a black man legally carrying an AR-15 assault rifle in public? About ten police cars, several drawn and pointed weapons,
handcuffs, and plenty of racism.

Emma Sulkowicz, accused a fellow college classmate of raping her, but the man was cleared of any wrong doing because Sulkowicz couldn't produce any evidence of his guilt. I can't offer any evidence
myself, other than saying decades of data show us that campus rapes are under-reported, and under-punished. Rather than continue on unheard,
Sulkowicz turned her experience into an enduring art piece by carrying around a mattress similar to the one she claims she was raped on. She said she would carry it around campus until the college
removed her classmate, and true to her work, she kept it with her every day
until her graduation.

After Esau Jardon, a Christian jeweler accepted money from a lesbian couple for wedding rings, he put up an anti-same-sex marriage banner and said he won't be bullied into apologizing for his
beliefs. Well, bullied? No. But I'll bet after everyone learns that you're a hateful bigot and stop shopping at your store, you'll suddenly learn how to say, "I'm sorry." The couple already got their
money back and is taking their business elsewhere, and owners of a neighboring franchise distanced themselves from Jardon saying they accept everyone, and I'll bet they won't be
the only ones.

Texas has a long history of trying to force their religion upon public school students, particularly Birdville school district. After several Constitutional violations were uncovered, a lawsuit was
threatened, and while the Christian school administrators claimed they would remove the violations, they lied. A lawsuit is now going forth. More taxpayer money wasted on legal fees rather than
helping students, all because the Christians in charge refuse to play fair. Thankfully, the lawsuit is calling out the individual administrators to be fined as well, maybe when they have to spend
their own money they'll
understand?

Chilly today

Feeling: Happy

2015-05-19

Republican Ed Orcutt back-pedals after saying that riding a bike creates more CO2 than
driving a car.

Muslim-controlled Iran is the kind of place where you can be sent to prison for mocking the country's restrictions on birth
control.

PZ Myers makes a good analogy about people who claim that they don't care if religion is true or not, it gives them comfort, though the analogy only really works if you're interested in
physics and engineering.

Catholic League spokesperson, and all around shit-eater, Bill Donohue demands an explanation from Louis C.K. about why he has child rape on his mind. I don't know Bill, you think it might have
something to do with all of the child rapists
you've been defending?

Sun's a burning!

Feeling: Happy

2015-05-18

Upgraded to a smart phone. It's more powerful than the first iPhone, cost $40, and has unlimited phone, text, and data for $35 a month. See what waiting a decade can do for your bills?

Recently beat the games Cave Story +, a really fun Metroidvania platformer with fantastic music, and Gone Home, a story-based adventure game with all the feels.

Flint, Michigan is up for mayoral reelection, and the choices are between a convicted felon, a convicted felon, and
Giggles the Pig.

The dark side of saving your virginity until
marriage. And on that topic, a New Zealand school distributed a pamphlet to students explaining when non-married couples live together, the man is a coward who turns his girlfriend into a cheap
prostitutes, and that they are sinful and will be sent to Hell. Certainly the kind of stuff you'd want to give a fifteen-year-old student rather than actually
educate them about sex. Of course, if
these people are prostitutes, they can be saved by a reality TV show that will exploit them and never follow through on helping them.

How would the average American feel if their city's sheriff went to a Sikh temple clad in their police uniform and preached about how the world would be a better place if more people behaved like
Sikhs? Or what if he took property paid for by taxpayers and gave it away to a Hindu temple? How would they feel if he explained that Allah wants him to try and convert as many prisoners to Islam as
he possibly could? You can bet that they would freak out, throw a tantrum, demand the sheriff's resignation. So, why is it okay when Sheriff
Grady Judd does it?

Emily and I met with Kelly in Royal Oak for mini golf and dinner. Twas a good time had by all! Especially the winner of mini golf... me!

Fox News is so ridiculously conservative, and vilifies the female body so much, they won't even show an uncensored Picasso painting. Apparently, cartoonish blue and yellow breasts with black
nipples are just too racy for the Fox News viewer. Oh lordy! I do declare, this gives me a case
of the vapors!

Protesting Christians have been inadvertently advertising for a gay porn site after forgetting to pay for their warningsofwrath.com
Web domain.

I would love to see this everywhere, but for now, I have to tip my hat to California. A judge ruled that abstinence-only is not sexual education, and therefore cannot be used in public schools
unless it is accompanied by actual sexual education. While his ruling only affects a single school district, you can bet that others will
follow this precedence!

In Arizona, several churches band together to help fight a growing threat among their ranks: Christians who don't hate. Yes, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, they're all ganging up to make sure
that churches who believe you don't have to be anti-science, you don't have to hate homosexuals, and you don't have to believe the bible is 100% literal to be a Christian, will be shut down! The part
of me who loves watching bigots shoot themselves in the foot is
hoping they succeed.

Christian group First Priority Blue Ridge has a history of, not only forcing their religion on others, but trying to write laws that require all people to force their religion on others. Their
recent "victory" is convincing Tennessee Republicans to pass a law allowing students to pray on a specific weekend, something they've had a right to do since the formation of the country, but now
their right to do it is in the law books -twice-!

Ly Moyne College, a private Catholic school in New York is inviting Cardinal Timothy Dolan to speak at their graduation. Dolan is an interesting choice because he did a particularly sleazy move
where he drained the coffers of his diocese just before they lost a massive lawsuit for protecting child rapists. So, instead of paying for the psychological counseling of all these people who were
raped by priests, the church said, sorry, we're out of cash, can't help you! Thankfully, quite a few of the students at the school are protesting Dolan's invitation showing that, while the new guard
isn't complacent with people who
protect child rapists.

The new Google Maps is garbage

Feeling: Happy

2015-05-13

I really hate it when software designers take away features, or hide features in later versions and call it "streamlining." You didn't streamline anything, you just made it more cumbersome to use.
Normally, it's morons like Microsoft that are guilty of this, but have you seen the new Google Maps? Rather than give directions they show you a picture of the map. If you want directions, you have
to expand the directions section. But that only gives you partial directions. If you want full directions, you have to manually open each of the partial directions. This is probably useful if you're
on your phone, but I can't exactly carry around my desktop while I'm driving, and you know full well that I'm on a desktop. Booo!

If you want to throw your hat into the ring of science, expect to be critiqued, especially if you're claiming something that conflicts with prior studies. Case in point, Christians tout the
Regnerus study, which shows that same-sex couples make poor parents, but when other scientists look through the list of people in the study, they found some rather... unlikely results. For example,
there is a person in the study who is 7'8", 88 lbs., married 8 times, with 8 children. There is also a person who was arrested at the age of 1. Maybe this study wasn't
well vetted, hm?

I may bitch an moan about how atheists are treated like second-class citizens here in the USA, but at least there aren't people trying to hack me into pieces for what I write like in Bangladesh.
Ananta Bijoy Das is the third recent atheist blogger to be chopped up by Muslims.

The Pew Forum has released data on comprehensive study of religion in the USA, and it's a doozy! Evangelicals, Catholics, and Protestants all see a decline, while non-religious and atheists see a
surge. The unaffiliated now outnumber all religious groups except Evangelicals, and even their numbers are dwindling. People identifying as atheists now outnumber Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses,
Orthodox Christians, unaffiliated Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and all other
non-Christian religions!

In Paraguay, a poor a ten-year-old girl was raped by her step-father and became pregnant. In addition to the horrors she endured from the rape, there is the danger of such a small frame, only 4'6"
and a mere 75 lbs., having to carry a baby. In civilized countries, doctors would suggest abortion, and the family would agree, and the poor child wouldn't have to deal with the pain and agony of
childbirth or be saddled with the financial burden of a child she can't possibly afford, but Paraguay is controlled by Catholics, and Catholics are always against abortion (well, at least after 1917,
when God finally made up his mind that it was a sin). The child cannot have an abortion because the
country doesn't allow abortion unless the mother is expected to die, and even then, it's unlikely. Sadly, little girls being forced to give birth to their rapist's child isn't that uncommon in
Paraguay, as in the past couple years it's happened several times, once to a child as young as 9!

Christian Evangelist Phil Kidd was driving along in his brand new Jaguar (which Jesus paid for) and got into a terrible car accident. Thankfully, the engineers who designed the car equipped it with
seat belts airbags, a roll cage, and a crumpling frame that kept him alive. Of course, Kidd's phrasing is a bit different. He believes he was sheltered in the arms of his god because he didn't have
a scratch! Yes, sheltered in the arms of his god! Oh by the way, his wife has a fractured spine. I guess his god's sheltering arms are
only so big.

Stupid rain making the grass grow

Feeling: Happy

2015-05-11

What goes through a woman's mind when they have to drive 814 miles to have an abortion.

Norway does something wonderful. In a response to the Muslim terrorists who murdered several civilians at the Charlie Hebdo offices because they published blasphemy, the country has decided to
eliminate its own blasphemy law making the country safe for other would-be free speech
advocates.

The atheist movement is seeing a nice influx of women and racial minorities, something it has seriously lacked
in the past.

Carrol Mitchem, chairman of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners, North Carolina just witnessed a Federal Judge rule against the Board of Commissioners of Rowan County, just a few miles away,
because the county officials refused to let non-Christians lead invocations during their meetings. But is that stopping him from doing the Christian thing? No! Mitchem not only refuses to allow
non-Christians to pray at his meetings, but tells Muslims to, "stay the hell away," and go pray to, "Allah, or whoever the hell they pray to." All I can say is, I'm looking forward to when they lose
their lawsuit and squander money of the
local taxpayers.

Republican Elbert Guillory explains how in the past, scientists used to burn people at the stake for not agreeing with them. Zach Kopplin reminds the Senator that, no, it wasn't scientists who did
that, it was the Christian Church.

In general, I think allowing for-profit institutions to battle for greater control of the market is a good way get the highest quality products for the lowest prices, and in the fastest amount of
time. The trouble is, in order for a for-profit institution to do well, they usually resort to unethical practices, and they're highly susceptible to being driven into the ground by ego-maniacal
sociopaths who are willing to sacrifice employees and customers in order to make a quick buck. This is why well-regulated oversight is necessary. However, when it comes to one company, this oversight
came too little, too late. Corinthian Colleges (which includes Heald, WyoTech, and Everest) had over 100 schools, all of which are now going to be sold or closed. This follows after several
investigations which demonstrate the company persuading its students into high-interest student loans even though the school's graduation rates were particularly low, and knowingly misleading students
into paying for classes for which they wouldn't receive accreditation, or credits that would transfer to schools that would offer accreditation, making their diploma essentially worthless. The damage
has already been done as countless students have either dropped out with massive student debt, or graduated with a worthless degree with even more student debt, and to make matters worse, many of
these students still received government assistance preventing it from being used on students who went to
real colleges.

Jeb Bush puts it plain and simple: When he leads, he leads according to his faith as a Christian, not according to some non-biblical document like the
US Constitution.

Yes, please, I will have a weekend.

Feeling: Happy

2015-05-08

The Game of Life (not the board game) is a lot of fun for people who enjoy seeing
emergent properties in action. This video interviews the game's creator. The reason I
enjoy this game so much is because it shows how extremely basic rules can result in unimaginable order and function, something that Creationists always contend is impossible.

There are laws in place for many different things, including the size of signs that can be placed along federal highways, because really, who wants to drive past behemoth billboards
every few feet? However, Christians in Oklahoma don't like playing fair, and even convinced their state lawmakers to pass a law allowing
larger signs for non profits (i.e., churches). But the federal government isn't too keen on letting people play by their own rules, and has told Oklahoma to get rid of the law, or they won't get as
much funding for their roads. Naturally, the Christians in Oklahoma are crying religious persecution because they aren't getting
preferential treatment!

Let's say you're taking a test in school, but suddenly you realize that you don't know any of the answers because you didn't study the night before. But thankfully, someone gives you all the
answers to every problem, and you wind up acing the test. Anyone who knows the value of studying would consider this cheating, right? But if you're religious, and a presidential hopeful, this isn't
cheating, it's a miracle.

Had to mow a lawn for the first time in 15 years... I still hate the tedium, but it is less annoying when it's your own house.

We're one step closer the the NSA being held accountable for their years of spying on Americans.

Conservatives want to know how to spot a feminist at a glance, so actual feminists give him some great tips on
what to look for. Another hilarious hashtag that's trending is
#AtheistsHaveNoMorals, where you can find such crimes as, "I eat devils food cake," "I remove my USB drive without safely
ejecting it first," and, "I ate Pringles and stopped after I popped."

Shockingly, a judge threw out the case of Sylvia Driskell, the Nebraska woman who wanted to
sue all homosexuals.

The city council of Cochran, Georgia was all set to use their authority to promote Christianity by flying the Christian flag at City Hall and hosting a bible reading marathon, but some quick work
by equal rights group and made them change their mind. When atheists speak up, Christian favoritism
goes down!

Texas Republicans decide that insurance providers, both governmental and even private, can not be allowed to
pay for abortions. Yes, the
party who brands themselves pro small government and thinks the government shouldn't affect private enterprise is trying to make it illegal for private enterprise to perform a perfectly legal service.
Turns out, Republicans are hypocrites. I know, you're all shocked.

The police in Granby, Quebec saw that someone had made a Facebook page mocking them, so they responded the way you would expect. The city
passed a local law that makes it illegal to use the Internet to insult the police!
There was already a law which made it illegal to insult police or city officials in person, but now you can't even blog about the city's incompetent impotent imbecilic officials. Things have
changed a bit since Norman Rockwell's America.

Though, Quebec is still coming in second to Iran who is deciding which haircuts and personal grooming methods are inappropriate for men. If you spike your hair, you better
expect punishment!

Once again the South shows us the fruit of not teaching comprehensive sexual education:
chlamydia.

Why people become atheists is usually very different than the reason religious people think they become atheists. And despite their suggestion that they want to have the reasons explained to them,
that doesn't stop them from claiming to already know and make decisions based on their
false beliefs.

John Hargrove, former Sea World employee may not be a model citizen, but Rebecca Watson explains how using an ad homenem him won't change the fact that Sea World has a history of
abusing its animals.

You know a Christian business owner is a great guy when they create a computer game called,
Kill the Faggot.
Speaking of homophobia, Sylvia Driskell, from Auburn, Nebraska is trying to sue all gay
people.

Back in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had to pay out $660 million after it was demonstrated that they had been protecting child rapists for decades. Now the details of some of those cases is
coming out, like Catholic Friar Gregory Atherton's sexual molestation of three boys. Atherton never served a night in jail for his crimes, but the LA Archdiocese did take him out of the public
ministry and send him to an undisclosed home and gave him new job. Atherton even apologized, to the other members of his parish, but of course, not to the children
he abused.

You may fear GMO foods, but I bet dollars to donuts you'd get a genetically modified porcine valve to save your life.

Rowan County, North Carolina was trying so hard to exclude all but Christian prayers at their meetings, but darn it, if that pesky US Constitution got the better of them again! They'll be forced to
pay the court fees of the ACLU (and by "they," I mean the North Carolina taxpayers), and have to allow
non-Christian invocations.

Republican Matt Schaefer wants to prevent women from having abortions even when doctors agree that the fetus is 100% going to die. His rational to forcing this suffering upon women is, people
deserve to suffer because
people are sinful.
Does that mean Schaefer is volunteering to be tortured because he's so sinful?

The Nostalgia Chick and Rantasmo discuss the lack of gay characters in Disney.

Howard Scott Warshaw does a post mortem on his game, and one of my favorites for the Atari 2600,
Yars' Revenge.

Climate change is still happening, it's still our fault, and it's getting worse.

Santa Monica, California has had a pretty controversial park in the past few years. Christians had been putting up Nativity displays on the lawn of Palisades Park, but in 2011, atheists reminded
the city that they can't favor any one group, and demanded a place to put their own displays. So, up went the atheist displays along side the Christian displays, and the Christians cried persecution.
How dare they be expected to share with others? Rather than deal with all this headache again, the next year city officials decided not to allow any displays in the park. Again, Christians cried
persecution, only this time, they sued the state from discrimination--because in their minds, having the same rules as everyone else is discrimination. The judge naturally ruled against them, and said
the city was acting correctly, so the Christians appealed. And again, the appeals court ruled against them, saying essentially, "We know you're pissed, but
get over it."

It's a case of too little, too late. After the media finally comes to their sense about the all the bullshit spewed forth by Dr. Oz, Oprah finally decides to drop the quack she helped
bring to stardom.

Turns out, you can't cure diabetes in a child by taking them off insulin and slapping them until they have bruises. They just
end up dying.

When a mega church in California successfully votes preachers into the majority of public school board positions, you can pretty much be certain they're going to violate the US Constitution, and
violate it they did! In addition to having the church tell all their sheep who to vote for, the President of the Board uses more bible verses in his meetings than original thoughts, and the board
member's views regarding abortion and Zionism seem to be relevant somehow. Thankfully, the FFRF is fighting this in court, and while the Christians in charge think they're safe by procuring a defense
lawyer who will do everything pro bono, they aren't taking into account the fact that they'll have to pay the FFRF's court costs
when they lose. That money will come
out of the tax payer's coffers, which means fewer teachers and books for the students.

SciShow explains why you shouldn't throw out organic matter, but instead allow your city to capture the energy for later use. Also, why
using a #2 pencil isn't that important any more.

Councilor Mark Wildenhain, of the Pawtucket City Council, Rhode Island publicly shamed a man for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance telling him that his actions are on par with burning
the American flag, both of which are illegal! Of course, refusing to say a prayer to a flag is not illegal, nor is burning it. This is something a person who fancies himself a city leader
should really know.

Christians are notorious for their ignorance and disgust for the US Constitution, as I demonstrate nearly every day, and today isn't any different. What do Christians do when they're reminded that
they can't use public schools to force their religion on children? They threaten to murder the person
who reminded them.

Oooh, a piece of candy

Feeling: Happy

2015-04-30

Colorado's teen pregnancy program has been a boon for the state, saving money by reducing rate of unwed teenage mothers by 40%, and the teen abortion rate by 35%. So naturally, the Republicans are
trying to kill it.

A science journal reveals some serious sexism by telling the authors of a paper (both women) that they should get a man's name on the paper
to improve it.

1960s Public Service Announcement about venereal diseases? Yes please!

The USA is supposed to be a secular nation, but the reality is that a good portion of the laws are entirely religious in nature. Well, if a religion can make those laws, perhaps another religion
can nullify those laws. Enter
Satanism.

Success often kills a collectible product, so why do some products stick
around?

The author of Doonesbury seems to be okay with people murdering those who disagrees with their religious beliefs, but the author of Tom the Dancing Bug demonstrates the natural outcome of
such a belief.

North Dakota State Representative, Republican Randy Boehning votes to keep discrimination against homosexuals legal, which is odd considering the fact he sends unsolicited dick pics to 21-year-old
homosexual males on Grindr.

Considering the human population continuing to rise, are we ever going to run out of names?

The American torture center in Guantanamo, Cuba is still a black mark for us. The most telling part of this article is at the end where it says, "what to do with some three dozen detainees
considered too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried for lack of evidence." If there is no evidence to convict them, how do we know they're too dangerous to release? Probably the hatred from
years and years of us torturing them.

The Surgeon General explains to Elmo why he needs to get vaccinated. Also, I don't care for Elmo's new voice actor.

Zoologists and farmers keep reminding us to save the bees, but they're not talking about honey bees.

Belle Gibson went on a whirlwind tour making over a million dollars promoting her cancer-fighting diet book and phone app. She was in magazines, on television, all over media in general, and then
it came out that she never had cancer at all, and she lied about everything, and her diet would only harm those who followed it rather than seek real medicine. So, what are we to do with all these
reporters and media networks that promoted her? Shouldn't they bear responsibility as well? Isn't it their job to make sure what they're reporting is the truth? Do they not even care any more? From
the way some of them are responding, it certainly seems
that way.

Even 30 years after the Chernobyl meltdown, the city of Pripyat is still an eerie ghost town.

Back in the groove

Feeling: Happy

2015-04-27

When a truly tragic event happens, like the Germanwings Flight 9525 which the pilot purposely flew into the mountains killing everyone on board, many people turn to religion to make sense of the
cold hard reality. Unfortunately, religion responds to these events by making them even worse by saying that everyone on that plane
deserved to die! Or what about
the earthquake in Nepal that has so far claimed close to 2,000 lives? Religion responds by saying that they're thrilled that all those Buddhist and Hindu temples
were destroyed!

The American branch of PEN (a writer's community) is giving its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper where Muslim terrorists murdered several people for
publishing cartoons criticizing Islam. Just the right candidate in my opinion. However, six authors who were invited to the event are so dissatisfied with the winner that they have
refused to attend! The six include Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine
Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi. Each has their own reasons for protesting, and I'm sure they're varied and nuanced, but I only have snippets from two available to comment on. Peter
Carey wrote, "A hideous crime was committed, but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?" Yes! Having to deal with people murdering you for pointing out the facts
of their violent religion is a very good reason to receive an award of courage, and for the situation to be publicized! Teju Cole wrote that Charlie Hebdo, "has gone specifically for racist and
Islamophobic provocations." No. Islam is not a race (the majority of Muslims are not even Arabic), but it is violent. The vast majority of Muslims think anyone who leaves Islam
should be executed, so yes, there is a very good reason to fear them!

If a man asks a total stranger on walking down the street if she wants to have sex with him, you can pretty much guess the result. Well, what happens when a woman asks a man she's never met
for sex?

Same-sex marriage is all but a done deal in this country. For one, we're playing catch-up to the majority of industrial nations where it's already the norm. Two, the majority of Americans are
in favor of it. Three, the majority of states have made it legal. Four, as a civil rights issue, it's pretty cut and dry. The only people with any political power who are still trying to stop it are
Republicans and Christians, which mostly
overlap anyway. Well, I have a message for these two groups: Please keep fighting it! Please continue to stand up and say it's evil, and that you're against it! Please keep refusing to serve
homosexual customers! And please PLEASE keep saying you're doing this because of your Christian faith, and because the bible tells you to do it! The more you do it, the more you'll be like the
Westboro Baptists and sacrifice the last vestiges of your political authority!

Here's a fun game where you have to adjust JavaScript code to solve puzzles.

The students at this public school in Atlanta, Georgia have a strong message for their gay classmate Tim Jefferson, if you ever come back,
we'll shoot you!

An unarmed man is shot several times in the back for fleeing police officer Adams Lin. The man is now paralyzed, and Lin has been
cleared of all charges. Also, Ervin Leon Edwards became belligerent after being arrested for wearing
sagging pants, as I think any other sane person would. But after an altercation in the jail cell, he was tased by police officers for what they claim was five seconds, which shouldn't be enough to
kill a person, but the cell video shows what appears to be Edwards being tased for much longer, and then he was left to die in the jail cell. Naturally, the local police denied any wrong doing, but
the matter is being taken up with the Department of
Justice (but don't hold your breath).

In a good example of how words can have frighteningly differing etymologies, Tisdale, Saskatchewan is considering changing its current motto of, "Land of
Rape and Honey."

Even though it's perfectly legal, US Marshals do not like being filmed and will destroy your property when you try to do it.

After Belle Gibson was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, but after dealing with the awful side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy she decided, like many other people before her, to forgo
medical treatment and try to fight the cancer with diet, exercise, and unproven "cures." She became online famous by writing about her experience dealing with the horrors of brain cancer and the
seizures it causes, but also how her all-natural regime was helping her. Wanting to help others follow her cancer-fighting diet, she put together a phone app and a $1 million in the process, leading
to her story being covered in Elle Magazine. Now, she's publishing a book on her story! There was just one tiny problem... Belle Gibson never had cancer. She lied about it all for attention and money,
and with her lie came the eventual death of countless people who stopped their medical treatment to follow her. Elle Magazine has not written an article explaining how they were
taken in by this fraud.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that invocations are fine at government meetings, even those that revere a specific god, but if a government wants to do it, they can't exclude anyone. Well, tell
that to Greenville, South Carolina. They refuse to let atheists give an invocation. But just to show how diverse they are, they explain how they're invocations have run the gamut between [Christian
denomination], [another Christian denomination], and [a third Christian denomination], oh yeah, and a
token Jew.

We're actively warming the planet at an irreversible rate which is causing all the sequestered water in glaciers to melt. Well, what happens to our coastal cities when
all the ice is melted?

Motherfucking Oedipus!

Feeling: Sleepy

2015-04-22

There have been studies that suggest that religious people are more mentally stable than non-religious people, but these are usually comparing highly religious people to non very religious people.
When you compare highly religious people to highly secular people, they're both about equally mentally stable. This suggests that it's not religion, but a confident world-view that
helps with
stability.

It isn't enough that the NSA is listening to your phone calls, reading your emails, and seeing your dickpics. Now they're working with Congress to pass a bill that will protect companies who want
to send your personal data to the NSA without a warrant.

The FBI admits that from 1972 to 1999, their forensics department was over-stating to judges and juries their accuracy with hair analysis. In reality, they were not using rigorous scientific
standards to match hair. This accounted for about 95% of the cases where they used hair analysis, which may have led to the conviction of potentially hundreds of innocent people, including 32 cases
that resulted in death
sentences.

Michigan Dieseltec owner Brian Klawiter is having a hell of a time trying to recover from openly refusing to serve members of the LGBT community. After admitting that Jesus probably wouldn't turn
away homosexual customers, he reminded his audience that Jesus didn't have children to protect from the gay. That's right, he's terrified that homosexuals will expose themselves to his children.
Sadly, Klawiter doesn't know the difference between a pedophile and a homosexual. All of this bad press has put a target on his back; his company's online presence is in the gutter, his criminal
history is being brought back to haunt him, and his fund-raiser was shut down due to his hate-speech. All he has left to fall back on is his religion, which unfortunately is what is causing him to
lose his livelihood in the first
place. Having once been a hate-filled Christian myself, I really feel bad for the guy.

Republican Allen West explains how, when he played high school football, nobody ever got injured because they had prayers
before the games. Sounds like someone took so many shots to the head, his memory is
failing.

Jehovah's Witnesses did something that religious apologists should never do, quote a -living- scientist. I say this because, as anyone who watches a lot of religious debates knows, when religious
people quote scientists, they're almost always misquoting them to further their religious agenda. This is fine when you misquote a dead scientist who can't defend themselves, but when you quote a
living scientist, there is always the problem of them calling you out on it. Sure enough, when the Jehovah's Witnesses quoted biologist Rama Singh in their January edition of Awake! magazine saying
that many educated people disagree with evolution, word of this quote found its way to Singh who thoroughly and completely called them out on it saying that he doesn't believe in Creationism, he
doesn't know of even a minority of scientists who do, and that the Jehovah's Witnesses knowingly misrepresented him. The offending quote was removed from the digital version of Awake!, but the church
never acknowledged the lie and has yet to
apologized for it.

With one co-worker on vacation and the other on-location for an installation, I have to get up two hours early every day this week. I'm not amused.

For the past 37 years, Parma, Missouri has been run by Mayor Randall Ramsey. But for the first time ever, the city elected a black female for Mayor, Ms Tyrus Byrd. This change caused 5 out of 6 of
the city's police officers to immediately quit. Kind of makes you wonder, is it just racism, or is there some deeper corruption involved with the
previous mayor?

Australia is wisely putting a stop to people pretending that their religion doesn't allow them to
vaccinate their children. It would be nice to see
a similar law in the USA.

14-year-old DezJuan Sanders was shot and killed in Elkhart, Indiana after an altercation with a yet unknown person. When asked about the shooting, Elkhart Sheriff Chris Snyder said, "A lot of it
falls on the parents. They need to take some responsibility to make sure their guns are locked up," and then, ""You take God and prayer out of schools and you take discipline away from parents and
teachers and you want the Sheriff to solve it? No." Ah yes, the old, "how can you expect me to do my job when I can't force your child to read a book that advocates murder?" line!
Gets 'em every time!

It's not always a good idea to prank your mother and tell her you were arrested for being a male prostitute.

Just like "family values" is code for homosexual bigotry, "religious freedom" pretty much means the same thing. Just ask Joan Cheever of San Antonio, Texas. She tried to invoke the state's
religious freedom law that allows business owners the right to deny homosexuals entrance to their stores, but it doesn't seem to protect her from being ticketed for feeding the homeless! Sure, Jesus
said absolutely nothing about homosexuality and tons of stuff about helping the poor, but for some reason, Texas thinks religious freedom means gay-bashing and not following the
teachings of Christ.

If you can handle an hour and a half debate on a few passages from the bible, here's an interesting one about God commanding genocide.

Several doctors from all around the country recently sent a letter to Columbia University where Dr. Oz holds a vice chair position. In short, they asked the university to reevaluate his position
and listed several very good reasons why Dr. Oz is an unethical greedy corporate shill. The university's response was a simple, we let our doctors say and do whatever the hell they want
without consequence.

Long live the King baby!

Feeling: Happy

2015-04-17

In order to prove the Republican party wants small unobtrusive government, Molly White is trying to make a law protecting the discrimination of homosexuals. And in order to prove that she's a good
leader who hears the voice of her constituents, she's refusing to meet with anyone who disagrees with her because, as she says, it would be
a waste of time.

Cheryl Rios doesn't think women should be allowed to become president because they're too moody. Ironically, Rios is the
president of her company. It would be refreshing to have
a president who isn't burdened by such religious-borne ignorance, but an atheist president is pretty unlikely.

The USA continues to rank at the bottom of world nations when it comes to paid maternity, time off, vacation time, minimum wage,
and so forth.

The racist, privileged, bigot, conspiracy theorists at Dieseltec Auto Repair in Grandville, Michigan are refusing to serve homosexuals. This has led to some rather hilarious
Yelp reviews, and hopefully, an out-of-business sign.

Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish climate change denialist in the sense that he agrees that the Earth is getting warmer, and that humans are to blame, but he denies the scientific consensus that this is a
bad thing. In 2003, Lomborg's was convicted of scientific dishonesty by his home government, but not sentenced to any punishment because the Danes agreed that he was too ignorant on the subject of
climate change to be guilty. Nevertheless, they stripped his funding, so Lomborg left the country looking for other groups who prefer to continue with business as usual rather than address our
impending self-imposed cataclysm. Naturally, he turned to the USA where Republicans and Libertarians have been giving him roughly $1 million a year, but this wasn't enough, so he convinced the
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott (anti-birth control, anti-same-sex marriage, anti-euthanasia, anti-stem-cell research, anti-divorce!) to give him
$4 million, all the while Abbott's administration continues
to cut the nation's education budget.

Even after the Tennessee Attorney General told them it was unconstitutional, House Republicans continued to try and get their bill passed that would make the bible the official state book. Well,
the Senate refused to go along with their bigotry and killed the bill, impressive since the Senate is also a Republican majority. So, the Republicans can't even blame Democrats for this one, so
do they blame themselves? No. The Senate blames Satan for introducing the bill in the first place.
Wait, what?

The Texas-based Liberty Institute is trying to bring up a case against the US Military because it's finally starting to crack down on Christian bullying. That's the mindset of the "Persecuted"
Christian: If you won't let me bully you, you're persecuting me!

Why are all Linux-based form designers so horrible?

Feeling: Happy

2015-04-16

What happens when a parent sits in on her child's sex-ed class in Lansing, Michigan and live Tweets it?

Orthodox Jews aren't allowed to use light bulbs on the Sabbath, because they consider turning on lights to be making fire (it isn't), and making fire on the Sabbath is considered work, and work
isn't allowed on the Sabbath, as mandated by God... through Moses... through several generations of oral history, through whatever random dude actually wrote the passage in the Torah. The point is, no
switching on the lights from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Thankfully, someone has invented a work-around that Yahweh won't notice! It's a light switch that works as a backward circuit breaker!
The lights are always trying to be on, but a plastic breaker prevents them. By flipping the switch, you're not turning on a light, you're removing the breaker from the circuit, allowing electricity
to flow like normal. Of course, the end result is a light turning on, but that's okay because you're following the letter of the law and Yahweh is too stupid to enforce the
spirit of the law!

Can the federal government see your dick pics? John Oliver interviews Edward Snowden who says yes. There are several NSA programs which collect the content of your phone messages and email and
store it on their servers for viewing.

Bill O'Reilly: It's not enough that my religion is the vast majority in this country, I also want it to be made illegal to
criticize my beliefs, never mind that nuisance Constitution crap!.

With their incredibly impractical mating habits, you may wonder how pandas even exist at all.

Bob Vander Plaats, Republican leader of the Christian hate group The Family Leader, acknowledges that Iowa is totally within its rights
to allow a Wiccan priestess to give an invocation... totally within its rights, but they're still making a
mockery of his god!.

Rebecca Watson points out the real difference between a cult and a religion. It's not just a matter of size or acceptance.

Demonstrating that the Republican party stands for small incorruptible government, senator Bruce Thompson just altered a bill that would give a $300,000 tax break to the Christian college to which
he is affiliated.

Andy hikes from Mexico to Canada, a total of 2,600 miles, and takes a picture at every mile marker. It's amazing to see how much weight he loses
through the process.

Despite the Tennessee Attorney General explaining that making the Bible the official book of the state would be a Constitutional violation, Republican Jerry Sexton will continue to try and make
forcing his religion on the state
a reality.

There is a Wiki-How for converting atheists to Christianity, and it's really quite despicable. The author use flowery language, and reminds the Christian not to trick anyone or lie to them, but
when you read the steps, they're all about not being openly honest, dodging any difficult questions, and ignoring all scientific facts. It's pretty telling when the best they can hope for is to talk
about how Christianity makes them feel, and not about if it's
true.

11% of the world's population identifies as atheist, but 27% are not religious, (AKA atheist). We're almost up to a
full third!

This is what happens when you add annotations to the promotional video of ScientologyNeurotology.

Republican Ben Carson asks of the LGBT community, keeping in mind that I don't think you should be allowed to marry the person you love, what can I do to
win your vote?

It's time to tell Indiana that they can't sit with the cool states anymore. Oh, how I wish Michigan were one of the cool states.

Pastor Fred Smith at his church in Wisconsin has been preaching to his congregates to vote for specific
political candidates. This is illegal for a church, or any other tax-exempt institution. The idea of the tax-exempt status is, if your primary claim is to help people, then you don't have to pay
taxes, but you also have to put helping people over politics. It's the job of the IRS to monitor tax-exempt institutions for rule-breaking, and when they see a tax-exempt institution not playing by
the rules, they revoke their tax-exempt status. This has happened to many organizations in the past few decades, but not a single church. This is because the position at the IRS responsible for
investigating churches has sat vacant for years, and the IRS has had no plans for filling it. Recently, the Freedom From Religion Foundation took the IRS to court over their failure to do their job,
especially since churches continue to be more open about their contempt for the law. In order to end the lawsuit, the IRS agreed to finally start enforcing their own rules, and being monitoring these
law-breaking churches. Well, it's been quite awhile, and still the position goes unfilled. This has led a Christian group called the Alliance Defending Freedom to file their own lawsuit against the
IRS demanding to know what happened with the FFRF lawsuit. The irony is, the IRS will probably just start removing church tax-exempt statuses just to avoid the
Christian lawsuit!

You can teach a parent to stop being ignorant and vaccinate their children, it just takes seven cases of whooping cough
in a single family.

Adding carbon into the air causes acid rain, which falls into the oceans which kills delicate sea life which is food for the predators, which disrupts entire aquatic ecosystems, which many
land-based organisms are dependent upon, which greatly affects humans. And we're making the oceans as acidic as the were during the
last great extinction.

Here is a list of several things that men do, many of whom never realize just how awful these things are.

In demanding a prayer at their state government meetings, Iowa Christians got more than they bargained for when a Wiccan Priestess
prayed to gods and goddesses.

Private schools are allowed to hire and fire who they want, and I'm fine with that. So, when Dowling Catholic High School decided not to bring a qualified substitute teacher on full-time because
he's gay, I'm not the least bit surprised. After all, Catholics are haters, and haters gonna hate. But what does warm my cold black heart with hearing about the students of the school organizing a
walkout protest for the
administration's hateful views. Despite their indoctrination, these students are learning to be decent human beings!

When you infiltrate Christian pregnancy crisis center conventions you can learn just how shady and evil these people are. They systematically teach people to lie to vulnerable women to try and
prevent their abortion and convert them to Christianity.

One of the NRA's convention locations doesn't allow guns, and in the places
where they do allow guns, all of their display guns are non-functional. What ever happened to that whole, guns are perfectly safe in the proper hands bullshit? Are NRA members all the proper hands?
Hell, everyone should be allowed to bring loaded guns to these things! And grenades.

A North Carolina cop shot an man in the back, claiming self-defense because he feared for his life after the man stole his taser, but the video evidence doesn't seem to fit the cop's story. From
the video, it sure looks like the cop shot an unarmed man in the back.

Republican Carly Fiorina denies the science of climate change. And even though scientists have been saying for years that our growing pollution problem will lead to erratic weather patterns and
horrible drought, Fiorina continues to deny them. So, what does a science denier do when faced with evidence of the science they deny, like the severe drought in California? They're forced to come up
with a scapegoat, in this case, Fiorina blames environmentalists for the drought! Yes, if they
hadn't prevented the state from building more dams and reservoirs, there wouldn't be a drought. Of course, environmentalists have pointed out to her that they've only been able to stop less than 1% of
the dams which now ruin the ecosystem of every major river in the state, but the drought continues unabated. But a science denier is not persuaded by ridiculous notions like logic or evidence!

Here is the trailer for a documentary about the continuing decline of the church in America.

Nancy Perry can show you a great way to put your employment status as a teacher in jeopardy. Tell all your students that Barack Obama isn't a Christian, and if any student's parents voted for him,
they aren't
Christians either!

Missouri Republicans are trying to force all students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day,
IN ENGLISH, cuz 'Murica! Despite the fact that the US Supreme Court ruled way back in
1943 that it's illegal to force students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and that was even before the
Catholics successfully lobbied to turn it into a prayer by injecting into the pledge the words "under
god."

Cult of Dusty comments on the rape fantasy of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson.

Lutheran Minister Dave Wendt resigned after it came to light that he sent a horrific rape threat to
a woman online.

For Easter, enjoy this infographic about all the contradictions in the crucification and resurrection story
in the Gospels.

What if Christians, instead of picking and choosing which rules of the bible they want to follow when it comes to
discriminating against people, actually discriminated to all the people viewed
negatively in their book? Instead, we get people like Republican Tom Cotton who thinks it's okay to discriminate against people in
small ways because in other countries they're being discriminated against in big ways.

Turns out, people are much more likely to accept ideas whether they culturally identify with the idea rather than what the evidence says.
So, if you want to change people's minds about topics like evolution or climate change, it's better to first get them in the mindset that the idea is acceptable to their culture before presenting
evidence.

Conservative Canadian politician James Lunney talked about evolution and religion for awhile demonstrating that he knew very little about either topics. After his colleagues mocked him for his
idiotic science denial, he quit the Conservative party and
became an
Independent. What I find the most interesting is that the Conservative party in Canada actually believes the reality of evolution!

Slate has an interesting article on the history of the condom, and the work toward making
a better condom.

If you care about children, it's very important to look into an Good News Clubs in your local school districts to see if they're bullying children and scaring them into
joining their horrible religion.

Kentucky Governor, Steve Beshear, a Democrat no less, argues that a law only allowing heterosexual couples the right to marry is actually neutral because it allows -all- people the right to marry
someone of the opposite sex. By Beshear's logic, a state where people could only marry other people
of the same sex is equally as neutral as well. What Beshear doesn't seem to understand (actually, I'm sure he does understand this, he just doesn't care because the discrimination doesn't affect him)
is that there is the difference between equality and fairness.

On the same day, on the same news channel, with the same reporter, for the same crime of burglary, the white criminals were depicted with their year-book photos while the black criminals were depicted
with their mugshots. The racist drivel in the comments doesn't help.

In Melbourne, Australia, Serial rapist, Adrian Bayley, raped and murdered 29-year-old Jill Meagher, which prompted Catholic priest, Joseph Olickal, to mention that if the woman led a "more
faith-filled" life, she, "would have been home in bed," rather than raped and murdered. His church assures everyone that he recognized what he said was inappropriate, but he has not apologized, nor do I
think we can expect him to. Commenting about the legal system in Melbourne, this was the rapist's TWENTIETH rape conviction, yet he was still wandering the streets!
How does that happen?

The administration in this Louisiana school district went a little crazy trying to force their religion down the throats of their students, giving them Christian prayers to pray, making them attend
church-sponsored Easter rap concert with a Christian rapper, and putting bible messages on the shirts
of their sports teams.

Some of the protocols for the US Department of Homeland Security's junk science security program SPOT has been leaked. Here are some of the tell-tale terrorist signs, we paid a billion dollars to
train Department officials to look for: complaining about the security, rubbing hands, yawning, whistling, staring, and throat clearing. Truly the
mark of a terrorist!

Arizona Republicans, the party who likes to believe they're against government interference, are requiring doctors to tell their patients who take a drug to induce abortion that the process is
reversible if they change their minds soon enough. Of course, there is no credible evidence that the process is reversible, at least not yet, so Republicans are effectively forcing doctors to
lie to their patients.

Young-Earth Creationist, Eric Hovind, was invited to the Troup County Comprehensive High School, a public school in Georgia, to lie to students about evolution under the guise of "critical thinking."
Naturally, when someone whose profession is to subvert critical thinking to promote their religious agenda, there is something awfully fishy about their business in a public school. Hovind's responses to
queries about his talk were just as slippery and slimy as the man himself. Thankfully, his poorly-constructed Power Point slide show was leaked and you can see just how
devious he was.

Why is Mississippi Judge Albert Fountain giving criminals a more lenient sentence if they write an essay
about the bible? Probably for the same reason that the city council of Orleans, Michigan decided to
open each meeting with a prayer conducted by a city council member, all of whom are ensuring a non-Christian prayer
will never be said, or the reason why Adam White, a student at Brigham Young University was
attacked by his roommate and evicted by his landlord because he is gay. Because their religions teach that anyone who doesn't believe like you is evil, or, at the very lease, beneath you.

There's no Canada like French-Canada, it's the best Canada in the land!

Feeling: Happy

2015-03-27

Indiana Governor, Republican Mike Pence, recently said this about a new bill he signed into law, "This bill is not about discrimination, and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have
vetoed it." Naturally, the bill in question allows religious people the freedom to discriminate against anyone who they don't like
for any reason. While the argument is that it benefits all religious
people, Indiana is a majority Christian state, which means the discrimination will especially injure non-Christians, homosexuals, and single mothers. Michigan also protects people who would rather
discriminate against innocent people rather than do their job, and you'll often find pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions because the pharmacist thinks their god knows the health of a patient more
than the patient's doctor. Luckily, these pro-discrimination laws can't possibly ridiculously backfire, like to the point where a postal worker refuses to deliver your mail because it
violates their religion.

DarkMatter2525 continues his story-based series about God. In this episode, he explains how, if a god creates a paradise and damnation afterlife system, it completely ruin any chance at a personal
relationship with that god.

Another secular survey shows the prominence of the not-religiously affiliated sector in the USA, accounting for a full third of the 18-34 population. In addition to not subscribing to any particular
religious faction, they're also much
more progressive and less
bigoted. And even surveys conducted by religious organizations are showing the ever growing non-religious attitude of the entire country, especially among the
educated, youth, and women.

This is unbelievably nerve wracking, but watch as some skiers lose their friend in an avalanche, but thankfully recover him.

Lehigh County, Pennsylvania refuses to remove a cross from their official seal because, as they claim, the cross, "has the secular purpose of recognizing the history of the county." That's right,
the leaders of Lehigh County think the revered holy symbol of the Protestant Christian religion is a
secular historical symbol. Adding their two cents is the Pennsylvania Pastors Network
(which is exactly who you would expect to chime in on a matter that has nothing to do with religion, right?), referring to the call for the removal of the cross as a, "hostility toward Christianity, but
also gross ignorance of our nation's founding documents." First of all, telling Christians they have to follow the same rules as everyone else is not hostility. Second, I wonder which documents they're
talking about? The deist Declaration of Independence, or the secular Constitution? I'm a little torn on cities refusing to secularize themselves and going to court. On one hand, I'm saddened by the loss
of taxpayer money that is being taken from schools and infrastructure and wasted on a hopeless lawsuit. On the other hand, I'm pleased to watch bigoted leaders fail their constituents and more money
being added into the coffers of legal groups that oppose systematic indoctrination.

Why are so many parents unwilling to vaccinate their children? According to a recent study, the primary reason isn't cost or complacency, but rather the fear that vaccines may be
dangerous and ineffective. This could be translated to "ignorance" since
all the scientific evidence shows that vaccines are both incredibly safe and effective.

Michael Sibley left two homemade bombs in a Georgia park in order to frame Muslims. When asked why he did it,
Sibley said because he was a patriot and wanted to remind people that Muslims can attack at any time. First of all, if you're planting bombs in local parks where innocent people will be killed by them,
you're not a patriot. Second, you don't need to frame Muslims, much like Christians, they do plenty of horrific things without your
help.

How many times do you need to beat a man for a rolling stop sign violation? Apparently a lot!

Another reason we still need feminism. Even in fields that are often thought of as "women's jobs," like nursing, males still earn more than their
female counterparts.

The TSA has spent around a billion dollars on a security program called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques). Why this training costs a billion dollars is almost as exasperating as
the fact that any psychologist will tell you the techniques used in SPOT don't work, and we've known they don't work for several decades. The "training" basically involves telling guards to look for
suspicious activity like seeing if people get nervous when they're stared down by security guards or if they stammer when a man with a gun barrages them with complicated questions, you know, the kind of
stress only a terrorist would have.

Vani Hari, who calls herself the "food babe" lacks even the most basic understanding of nutrition and physiology. She thinks that lemon juice (with all that citric acid in it) is not acidic, but
alkaline! It's surprising that she hasn't poisoned herself to death trying to change her body's pH level. Actually, this ridiculous manner of thinking is quite popular among the
new age ignorati.

Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty fame, described the horrible assault, rape, and murder of a fictional family of atheists as an example of how, if his god didn't exist, there can be
no morality.

A Muslim mob gathered around a teacher of Islamic studies named Farkhunda in Kabul, Afghanistan because there was a rumor that she had burned a Koran. The mob proceeded to beat her, stomp on her, and
bash her head in with a brick until she finally died from the assault. Both a Muslim imam and a local police department are in agreement that what the mob did was the right thing to do, because anyone
criticizing their religion must be swiftly and brutally murdered, and if any outside law enforcement tries to stop them, there will be trouble! Well, it turns out that, after actually investigating the
woman, the criminal investigator found absolutely no evidence to suggest that Farkhunda had defaced a Koran, and that she was totally innocent. Unfortunately, this is common place in
Muslim-controlled countries.

If you think that feminism is no longer needed, realize that there are still 79 countries in the world that restrict
women in the workplace.

Is it that the San Antonio Police Department doesn't know that they're violating the US Constitution with their morning prayers, or that they
just don't care? Maybe they can hire Officer Brad Rice
who will tell them they're going to Hell for not being Christian enough and discourage all their female employees from
coming to work?

Tea Party activist and self-professed "Catholic Warrior," Susan Hemeryck tried to steal a Satanic display from the Florida State Capitol with the intent to destroy it because it was an attack on her
right to be a Christian. We know this because she was filmed stealing it, and even admitted later that she wanted to destroy it. Before police stopped Hemeryck from stealing the display, she damaged it,
so she was arrested for vandalism. Despite all this evidence, the charges against her have been dropped because the state claimed there wasn't any evidence that the display was damaged, but merely that
it disassembled because it wasn't constructed solidly enough. After letting her go, Hemeryck crowed at how God gave her victory over Satan and that she was doing the work of the Catholic Church. Great
work on dissuading theft Florida, I'm sure she'll never do anything like that
ever again!

Heard Rilo Kiley's Silver Lining at lunch today. Still upset that there won't be any more albums.

Bedroom set arrived yesterday; looks great. Just waiting on our living room set, and we'll have all the necessary furnishings, and all the necessary debt!

In order to learn how a bill becomes a law, a bunch of fourth graders in New Hampshire put together a bill to make the Red Tail Hawk the official state raptor. They drafted the bill and got the
approval through the state's Environment and Agriculture committee, but failed to get it past the House of Representatives. I'm fine with the bill failing, I mean, how many "official" whatevers does a
state really need? The part that disgusts me is Republican Warren Groen who told the children that something with talons and a razor sharp beak that rips its prey apart limb from limb should be a
mascot for Planned Parenthood!

In order to prove just how pathetic the laws surrounding "all-natural" medicine are, this group put together a fake medicine for treating pain and fever in children and used the pages of a homoepathy
book from 1902 as evidence of their sham product's effectiveness. Sure enough, Health Canada approved the product so it could be listed as "
safe and effective!"

Want to watch a Conservative to have a meltdown? Have a child recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic.
One nation, under Allah!

Some of the more interesting changes in licensed videogames in various regions.

Dallas police murder a man at his mother's home by shooting him six times because he wouldn't
drop a screwdriver.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio is really working overtime to give preferential treatment to the religious voters in New York, offering them days off, prayer time in school, religious services in public
schools, and even making it easier for the baby-penis-sucking Jews the right to continue
spreading herpes to infants.

I know I bitch a lot about the evils of religion and churches, but, despite all their failures, you really have to admire them for all the work they do to
take care of the homeless?

It's important not to forget that there was a time, not that long ago, when an openly hateful group like the KKK
numbered in the millions.

After it came to light that the NSA has been intercepting network equipment en-route and installing backdoors into the devices so they can
spy on private networks, Cisco has announced that they will start shipping to
completely unrelated locations so it will make it harder for the NSA to trace which customers are receiving their hardware, and thus, harder for the NSA to
infiltrate private citizens.

An Ohio public school wisely moves their Ten Commandments plaque to the local historical society rather than pay out a costly lawsuit which leads one Christian student to boycott his school work until
it's brought back.

Buddhists still can't hold a candle to the Muslims who murder people for drawing Muhammad, but they're getting closer by putting three men in prison for two years each for depicting
Buddha with headphones.

Tennessee is so fond of William Jennings Bryan, the lawyer who represented Creationism in the Scopes Monkey Trial, that the made a statue of him
at the Dayton courthouse where the trial took place. Well, ten years later, the people of Dayton are slowly seeing the light and are considering adding a statue of Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who
defended John Scopes.
Although, personally, I think Scopes is the real hero of this story.

What Anita Sarkeesian wish she could have said in her professional speech, but couldn't.

In addition to the continued exploration of the universe, NASA is instrumental in learning about the myriad issues of our planet. They have been instrument in discovering the purpose of the O-zone
layer, what is depleting it, and how to fix it, as well as a host of other environmental issues. To use a metaphor, NASA is like a fire alarm, carbon monoxide detector, and security camera of a house,
all rolled into one. And like those devices, NASA requires very little to operate, only 0.7% of our national budget. Now, there are people who remove their home's smoke detectors because they think the
money they're wasting on 9-volt batteries could better be spent elsewhere. These are people who not only put their own lives at risk, but the lives of their entire families. And what do we call these
short-sighted people? Republicans.

Rick Santorum wants everyone to know that it wasn't the US Supreme Court that took bibles out of schools (which is technically true, they only banned
teachers from preaching), but I doubt that's what Santorum means. No, he wants to make it so that teachers can
preach to students again. Awesome! I'll start. Santorum, let me teach your children
about the bible!

Another perfectly sane gun owner who couldn't use a dollar-off coupon shows us why it's perfectly safe to give a gun
to everyone.

Republican Tom Cotton, the rookie senator behind the letter to Iran where they said any treaty they make with the president probably
wouldn't be honored by
the Republican Congress, is very upset that Iran is in control of Tehran... which is their
capital city. That's like a someone being very upset that the United States
controls Washington D.C.!

Conservative Irish politician, Fidelma Healy Eames, is deeply concerned that Mother's Day will cease to exist if the same-sex couples are allowed to marry. I guess Irish Conservatives are just as bad
at Geography as American Conservative because she cites two American states where Mother's Day is already banned, New York and
Nova Scotia!

Tara Sharpe called the police to help assist her mentally ill 22-year-old son, Kyle Sharpe, to the hospital for evaluation because he was beginning to act belligerent. Regina Tasca arrived and began
talking to Kyle gently to calm him down. Then, two other officers arrived, Joseph Rella and Chris Thibault. The addition of these two police officers spooked Kyle, and he began to leave, so officers
Rella and Thibault tackled him to the ground and began hitting him. Officer Tasca tried to stop them from beating the young man who did nothing wrong, and for her trouble, she was
going to be fired. Well, during her hearing it came out that Joseph Rella lied and said he never punched
Kyle Sharpe, and had to admit that he violated police protocol by attacking an unarmed non-violent man. It also came out that, Jim Sepp, Tasca's superior who was trying to get her fired, lied in his
report, failed to interview witnesses, and destroyed evidence from the event. Due to the incompetence and corruption of Rella and Sepp, Tasca was not fired, but neither Rella or Sepp have
faced any disciplinary action.

Panama City Beach's Life Center, a church in Florida, has lost it's tax-exempt status because they were caught hosting various
alcohol and sexual-themed parties. The local sheriff was quoted saying, "They’re trying to
get around the laws, and they’re using the church to get there." Well, yes, that's what the majority of churches today are doing. After all, doesn't the government allow television stations that perform
no services or public works to call themselves churches? Doesn't it allow pastors to claim multi-million dollar homes as parsonages? Who is to say that wet T-shirt contests and alcohol aren't how these
people honor their god? Does the government really want to be in the business of making rules that all churches must adhere to? I think a much more sensible system would be to remove tax-exempt status
from all churches and let them create non-political charities for all their projects that benefit society, and keep their religious views private.

Why is Fox voted the nation's most trusted news source? Because it's a popularity contest.

German virologist Stefan Lanka offered a €100,000 reward to anyone who could prove that the measles virus exists. This is because, Lenka is not only an AIDS denier, but also an Ebola denier, and
even a measles denier! Offering huge sums of money for proof of something that the scientific community accepts is a pretty typical tactic from cranks, but they usually leave the contest vague enough
to allow them to squirm out of ever having to pay, even if iron-clad evidence is brought to bear. Doctor David Barden took Lanka up on his offer and produced the requested evidence in the form of
multiple clinical studies, but Lanka refused to accept his evidence. But Barden wasn't about to back down and took Lanka to court, and, unfortunately for Lanka, he wasn't very slimy when it came to
putting together the terms of his reward, and a German court is demanding that he pay Barden the €100,000, as his evidence did indeed
meet Lanka's terms!

Even though marrying later in life leads to stronger marriages, and more stable families, Christians continually try to push marriage earlier. Why is this? Two reasons in particular. They know they
can't out-logic non-Christians, so they're trying to out-breed them. Two, masturbation and sex before marriage are evil tools of SATAN, and if you marry when you're still a writhing mass hormones,
you're less likely have non-Christian sex.

Christians are urging parents to keep their children home during the Day of Silence where students remain silent all day to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community that is often forced to remain
silent about their sexuality. In particular, they Christians don't like it when students push their political views in school. This is particularly hypocritical considering the LGBT Day of Silence is
modeled after the Christian Day of Silence used to promote the
anti-abortion agenda.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is trying to get Catholic Schools in San Francisco, California to adopt language against homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, birth control, and artificial
insemination, but surprisingly, the Catholic school administrators are fighting his
bigoted rules!

Most people don't know why we have Daylight Saving Time, but I still like having more daylight in the summer evenings!

U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron dismissed the American Atheists lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma for erecting a Ten Commandments monument at the state capitol on the grounds that it doesn't
hurt anyone. Apparently, having your own government promote someone else's religion isn't hurtful. Never fear though, the ACLU lawsuit continues, and even if that fails, the Oklahoma Satanists and
Hindus have monuments of their own ready to be displayed at their
state capitol.

Oh, and speaking of that backward state, Oklahoma Republicans are also trying to make it so only religious people get to decide
who can marry.

Way back in 1963, the US Supreme Court ruled that public school faculty members were not allowed to read the bible to students because it was a violation of their first amendment rights. Despite
this ruling, Dan Noll and Michael Gilbert, two public school workers in Texas, are okay with reading the bible to their students because, according to them, it's legal to read the bible in schools as
part of theology class. Of course, they're not teaching theology class, but rather reading verses during the morning announcements. I guess, in Texas, morning announcements double as a
theology class.

A bunch of religious fanatics with guns claimed a little boy was helping other religious fanatics with guns who don't agree with the first group of religious fanatics with guns. In order to prove
that they are the one true religious fanatics with guns, the men repeatedly shot the little boy with their guns until he died. Only one man had the courage to tell his fellow religious fanatics not to
murder the little boy, but he was quickly pushed aside so that the religious fanatics with guns could
do God's will. So far, there is no way to tell which
religious fanatic sect the shooters call their own, but does it really matter?

Want to be cheered up after that? Watch the Nostalgia Chick's review of The Worst Witch.

Already a third of the way through March?

Feeling: Happy

2015-03-10

When I was in elementary school, a classmate of mine never stood for the Pledge of Allegiance while the rest of the class did. Thinking that it wasn't fair that he got to remain seated, the next day
I tried sitting through the ritual myself, only to be reprimanded by the teacher. When I responded with the typical question, "then how come he gets to stay seated?" my teacher angrily informed me that
he, as a Jehovah's Witness, doesn't stand for pledges, but since I wasn't a Jehovah's Witness, I had to stand. That was all it took for little 8-year-old me to stand for every Pledge of Allegiance for
the rest of my public school tenure. Well, times have changed quite a bit since then, and many Americans are demanding that they and their children be exempt from any jingoistic rituals, especially
those that have been perverted into prayers by the American government. The US Government these days reminds its citizens that they are under no obligation to recite daily loyalty oaths or prayers,
however, this edict hasn't yet seem to have reached several
principals and teachers.

While Michigan doctors are busy watching homosexuals die from blood loss because they don't like treating dem queers, Ontario is making sure that all people are treated equally and that bigoted
Christians will pay a penalty for failing to do
their jobs.

Speaking of Christian bigots, Bishop Kevin Doran went on quite the tirade comparing homosexuality to Down syndrome and saying that parents who can't procreate and adopt children to care over, aren't
real parents. He also suggested that women who become pregnant due to rape will have abortions, not because they don't want to endure the years of caring for a child that was forced upon them by a
criminal, not because they don't want to be drained of their time and money while at the same time carrying the social stigma of being an unwed mother from other venom-spewing Christians, but because
they just want revenge on their rapists, and killing the rapist's child is the
way they do it.

While trying to explain the difficulties in protecting wild gray wolves, Republican Don Young suggests introducing them into urban districts to solve their problem with the homeless. Naturally,
Young was only joking... but then, he is a Republican.

Australian doctor Gabrielle McMullin says that sexism is so rife in her profession, that, unless female doctors want to ruin their career, they should just accept the unwanted sexual advances of
their bosses rather than risk being shunned out of a career by the good old boys club. Obviously, Dr. McMullin hasn't quite lost the courage to fight, because she's willing to have her story heard,
and I don't blame her horrific statements. Instead, I blame the male dominated Australian physician's culture that drives her to
make these statements.

Republican Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, has banned the state's Department of Environmental Protection from using the phrases "global warming, climate change, and sustainability." This is
because, in the magical fairy land where Scott lives, humans can't make an environmental impact.

Religion is still on the decline, but the amount of personal prayers seem to
remain unchanged.

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira just compared free speech to pedophilia as she pushes to make laws that will allow the French government to shut down web sites that publish, what she
deems, racist or anti-religious literature, and why wouldn't you want to trust the government to tell you which ideas are
right and wrong?

In an effort to promote diversity, and not to cash in on the memory of a civil rights activist, Fox is hiring Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr. She is both anti-abortion and anti-divorce,
despite having had two abortions and three divorces. Being a massive hypocrite, she fits right in with the
existing Fox crowd!

American author Mark Twain will soon be honored with his likeness on US currency. His face will be embossed right next to the motto, "In God We Trust," which is especially ironic, because Twain
was against the motto, and its inclusion on US currency.

In an effort to follow in the footsteps of his pedophile prophet, a Lebanese man "married" a 12-year-old girl and
had sex with her, although this isn't quite the same as
Muhammad whose child-wife was only 9 when he had sex with her.

Ready to be healthy again

Feeling: Okay

2015-03-06

When they're in power, Republicans tell everyone that God himself has endorsed their agenda, and if you disagree with them, not only are you wrong, but you're also going to BURN IN HELL!. When
Democrats are in control, Republicans tell everyone to boycott the government altogether.

While his Applebee's sizzling fajita skillet was still sizzling, a New Jersey man bowed his head to pray over his meal. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to realize that the sizzling sound comes from
grease boiling on the metal serving plate. As you can guess, the man received a popping grease facial. However, rather than thank God for retaining his vision after such an ill-conceived stunt, the man
decided to sue Applebee's because the server didn't tell him his boiling grease plate with all the smoke coming off of it was hot. Thankfully, New Jersey courts refused to accept the argument, even
after his appeal. Isn't there a bible verse about, if a
man splashes boiling grease on your cheek, turn the other cheek and let them splash grease there as well?

Dealing with the argument that women shouldn't be allowed to do things on their own because they'll get raped.

While follow-up studies are needed to verify the results, this test is demonstrating that belief in God causes you to
take bigger risks.

Awhile ago, the Christian hate group, the American Family Association, put together an online bigotry map. Of course, if you're being accused of bigotry by a hate group, it's usually a good sign.
Well, recently, a reporter started looking into these groups that the AFA list as, "openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith." Turns out, they do awful things like, try to provide a safe haven
for the LGBT community, and identify when government officials are violating the US Constitution!
FOR SHAME!

Didn't have to go through an entire box of tissues today. Things are getting better!

Google plans to help add credibility to the Internet by adding more weight to sites that have factual information rather than
erroneous tripe.

Republican Justin Harris and his wife adopted two daughters, only to pawn them off to a man named Eric Cameron Francis, who is now serving 40 years for
raping them. In an effort
to avoid the press, Harris has taken to quoting bible verses at them.

Republican Ben Carson proves that people choose their sexual orientation because a straight man sometimes choose to have gay sex with men
in prison. That's check and
mate!

Alabama continues to broadcast its bigotry and hatred for the human race with the state Supreme Court demanding that all Alabama judges cease issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couple, even
though the Federal Government is requiring them do to so and over half of the states in the union have
already legalized it.

People often claim that the vast majority of Muslims aren't fundamentalists, but are more like moderate Christians. Of course, then it was revealed that a shocking number of Muslims are in favor of
the death penalty for any Muslims who leaves the religion, in Muslim dominate countries this percentage can be
as high as 86%!. This ties in with a
recent poll showing that most Republican Christians are in favor of dismantling the Constitution and replacing the supreme law in the US
with the bible, a book which also demands the
execution of apostates. I guess those people who think Muslims are like Christians are right after all!

Republican Steve Vick is fine with prayers during the city council meetings in Idaho, just as long as they're not Hindu prayers. Vick doesn't like Hindus. He's outraged that they worship
cows—they don't—and he hates their caste system—which is a political not religious, and was probably introduced by
British Colonialists (i.e., Christians), not that it matters since it was banned in India
over 60 years ago. Vick only wants to hear prayers that honor his idea of the country's
Judeo-Christian
heritage—also bullshit, as the Christians have predominately hated the Jews throughout the
entire history of the country.

Micky Maurer remembers the time when Johnson County, Indiana meeting was closed with a prayer and the preacher explained how he would be burn in Hell
for being Jewish. This memory was brought back after the Indiana city voted to change their lawn into a free
speech area so they wouldn't have to take down
their Nativity Scene. I look forward to seeing the upcoming Satanist display.

Evangelical Preacher Kent Hovind continues to assert that he can't be taxed by the government because his possessions belong to God, and you can't tax God. The IRS doesn't seem to agree with him,
which is why he's in prison right now, and will probably be increasing the
duration of his
visit.

Michigan Republicans are quite happy about their religious discrimination bill that grants legal protection to those medical employees who prefer to watch people die because that's what
Jesus would do.

Last year, the volleyball team at Erskine College, a private Christian school in South Carolina, had an amazing year both in victories, and in the fact that the two gay members of the team came out
and were still accepted by the rest of the team. Well, Christians doesn't like it when homosexuals are treated like people, so they just issued an official statement condemning homosexuality and
same-sex marriage. However, as the author of this article points out, they will continue to have practice and games on the Sabbath, because then Ten Commandments aren't as important
as gay-bashing.

This explains why ISIS is trying so hard to keep women covered up and hidden away.

Yet another instance of Bill O'Reilly mis-remembering his history has
come to light. Still waiting for that apology.

While it has certainly happened more, here are some of those worst cases of when Fox was immediately proven wrong on the air.

Jesus has finally been captured and will face charges for raping several girls. And when I say Jesus, I mean Victor Barnard who convinced a group of people that he was Jesus so he could
molest their children.

After allowing a Muslim witness to swear on a bible, an English court is conducting a retrial for what they view as a mistake. Obviously, they can't trust the testimony of a Muslim who has taken an
oath not to lie if they swear on a bible!

Republican James Inhofe explains how climate change can't exist because he has a snowball. Then, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse give him several minutes of evidence and quotes from authorities on how
Inhofe and his snowball share the same level of
intelligence.